


66 Shades of Black

by Sereq_ieh_Dashret



Category: Forgotten Realms, War Of The Spider Queen
Genre: Alcohol, BDSM, Bathroom Sex, Blood and Gore, Bullying, Canon-Typical Violence, Casual Sex, Cock Slapping, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Explicit Consent, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Face Slapping, Fantastic Racism, Gender Role Reversal, Kind of Body Horror, Loss of Virginity, Orgasm Delay, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Recreational Drug Use, Xenophilia, Xenophobia, body image issues, chemical safety, drow have fandoms too, drow-punk, embracing uniqueness, gender stereotypes reversed, gladiatorial matches, half-demon character, possibly kind of underage, supportive families, the main character is a bit mix and match, they say "fuck" a lot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-07-15 03:14:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 38,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7204247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sereq_ieh_Dashret/pseuds/Sereq_ieh_Dashret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This started basically as indulgence of my xenophilia kink for one of the characters of the War of the Spider Queen series and my absolute love of the Armgo family. Those punk drows are my favourite.<br/>Is gradually evolved into a tale of adventure, acceptance, love and f-ing between self-identified freaks.<br/>It's set in Menzoberranzan, but takes quite a bit of inspiration from Drowtales.<br/>Posting might be slow and irregular.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: explicit content ahead

  
Draegloths might be sacred and all, but, more often than not, being one sucked real hard, Jeggred though, letting his shorts fall to the ground and stepping into the huge tub (more like a small pool, actually) sunk in the floor of the room.   
His body ached with exertion and the sting of tens of minor wounds, but the nearly scalding water made him relax almost instantly with a sigh. He sunk as deep as he could (which wasn't much, since the pools had been designed with someone at least a couple of feet shorter than him in mind), trying to clear his thoughts, but the causes of his discontent were hard to set aside.

The Sacred Games had always been an occasion for the scions of the Noble Houses to distinguish themselves and gain honour among the citizenship.    
Year in, year out Jeggred had always asked his mother to let him take part as a fighter, instead of keeping him at her side, forcing him to watch the rest of his cousins gain the laurels of fame, while he just stood there like so much scenery.   
He had wanted a piece of the action, to be like the others, even though he knew he was not.

He was better, stronger and faster, fearless.    
He was much younger than his warrior cousins (polished, elegant fencers, recently graduated from the Academy), but he could wipe the floor with most of them as easily as he could walk through the corridors of House Baenre, and with most of the rest only with slightly more difficulty, and his mother knew it, but in previous years she had always given excuses and denied him the permission to partecipate.    
First he had not been old enough, and then when he had finally stopped growing, turning to all intents and purposes into an adult, she had told him that she needed him to guard her on the honour tribune. Every year she would invent some reason to exclude him.

This time, inexplicably, she had finally caved in and he had walked in the tunnels under the arena with his head held metaphorically high even though the tunnels were too low for him to stand straight, ignoring the laughter and the comments of the other Baenre warriors and of the members of other Houses. He would show them, he thought.  
They considered themselves so special because they had been to the Academy, they saw themselves as superior because they were full-blood drow, and gave themselves airs because they had the attentions of the jalili, but he would make sure that they knew who was the best young warrior of the House, no, of the whole City. He would be crowned champion by his mother and they would have to watch and seethe, for once, he thought.

 

The attendants had led him to a secluded part of the tunnels where he had waited his turn as patiently as possible, and then finally his moment had come. He had been lifted to the center of the arena with a creaky wooden lift, and before he even had the time to perform the ritual salute to the Matrons in the tribune, something had attacked him. Various somethings, actually. A bunch of cobolds and other beasts, one after the other. The crowds had cheered and laughed.   
Jeggred had acted on instinct, tearing and clawing the closest ones with his combat arms and kicking to keep the others at bay a bit longer, but his mind had still been clear enough for him to realise that there was something profoundly wrong in what was happening.

The scions of the Houses fought in single combat, or, at most in groups in reenactments of past battles against troops of slaves.   
This however was a  _venatio_ , one of those filler fights where a slave or a beast had to survive against successive waves of foes, which were usually wedged between serious combats for entertainment value.   
A slave. A beast. Was this what he was? What everyone thought he should be?    
The realisation shocked him so much that he froze for a moment, paralyzed by humiliation and a profound sense of injustice.   
"Why, mother? Why did you let them do this to me?" he asked himself, daring to cast a glance towards the tribune. His mother was looking in front of her with a stony expression, without even appearing to notice him, and Jeggred felt as if the ground had disappeared beneath his feet. Why was she punishing him so? What had he done wrong?

One of the beasts managed to score a hit, raking its claws across his back, and Jeggred came to, jolted back into action, and all the sadness and humiliation turned instantly into rage and he let it consume him.   
He roared his pain and lauched himself back into the fray, oblivious of anything that wasn't tearing through flesh, rending bodies limb to limb, killing everything that moved, letting the blind, transcendent extasy of slaughter wash over him and erase everything else.    
He didn't know how long they had kept on sending foes after him, how long he had kept on killing, but when his vision cleared, he had been almost completely covered in blood and the ground at his feet had turned sticky with gore. Tens of bodies had been littered on the sand, and the attendants had whipped out their pikes and were circling him nervously, while one of them writhed on the floor, disembowlled by his claws, it seemed.

"Jeggred! - his mother had called and probably it wasn't the first time - Jeggred, come here now!" she had ordered, as if he was a pet or a small child and not a grown warrior, but he knew he could not disobey her in front of the whole city.    
Her reputation and the reputation of House Baenre were at stake, so he had glared at the attendants and sent them scurrying with another roar before stalking towards the tribune and levitating onto it as if nothing had happened.   
His mother nodded at him and patted the side of her throne, signalling that he should take his usual position at her side, but, apart from that, she barely deigned him of a glance and he couldn't do anything but stand there and watch as others gained glory and accolades, as another was crowned champion.   
It would never be him, no matter how hard he tried.

"Why did you let them treat me like a slave?! - he had asked his mother during one of the intervals - I am as nobleborn as everyone else! I am your son!" he had added, feeling like he wanted to cry.   
"You are not a nobleborn  _drow,_  Jeggred. - his mother explained - And no one who is not a drow can fight in the regular fights or be the champion before the Goddess and the City."   
"Why didn't you tell me, then?! Why did you let me hope, mother?! Why?!" he sobbed, kneeling at her feet.   
"Because you needed this lesson, my son. - she explained, gently ruffling his mane of coarse, blood-flecked hair - No matter how much I cherish you, everyone else will only ever see you as a tool, as a beast tamed by my command, not as a real drow. Some things will forever be beyond your reach. You need to make peace with this, the sooner, the better." she concluded, and even though he knew she was right and he knew that she loved him deeply, her words did nothing to soothe the pain in his heart.

"What the hell was I thinking?" Jeggred asked himself, slapping one of his big combat hands flat on the water to ease his frustration.   
His mother was right, half-drow was not nearly drow enough, and it wasn't like he could pass, like some half-caste merchants who looked exactly like drow except maybe for the colour of their eyes.   
He was a hybrid, a mongrel, in-between, and that fact was etched in every inch of his grotesque, ungainly form.    
He would never be like his cousins, he would never look smart in well-crafted armour and tailor-made clothes, he would never command a troop of scouts in a raid, he would never be given in marriage to cement an alliance. Who would want him, ugly as he was?   
His body was a deadly, fearsome weapon of war, but could hardly inspire desire in a jalil. He was too tall, too hairy and too demonic to appeal to a drow noblewoman's sensitivities, with his four arms, retractile claws, feline legs and cat-like features. Who would pick him, with all the pretty, young, available jaluki in his family? He was destined to a thankless life of solitude and service, without ever experiencing the joy of being owned, body and soul, by a jalil.

As if on cue, from the next room came the sound of moans and delighted little screams, adding insult to injury.   
Jeggred let out a low rumble and considered getting out of the bath and thrashing the couple (or group, hard to tell) next door, but as soon as he had formulated the thought, all energy drained out of him. What was the point?    
Injuring a few fuck-birds wouldn't make his situation any different. He was and would remain unfuckable no matter what, but oh, the sounds were maddening. As usual fate was dangling in front of him something he would never have. It was the story of his life, really.   
Maybe he should just go home as he had been told to do.   
Staying at the arena with the warriors had been a capitally bad idea. What the hell was he still trying to achieve? That was not his place. His place was beside his mother, so that he could serve her. It had to be enough.

He was rinsing himself off and preparing to go when the door opened, letting in a tall, broad-shouldered figure who moved confidently towards the bath.   
"Ah, at least no one is fucking in this tub!" they exclaimed with a voice that was rather deep, but undeniably feminine.

He heard a sound of something thudding on the floor, probably a bundle of clothes and armour, then the vapour parted a bit, allowing him to see the newcomer.    
She was a very tall jalil, probably six feet tall or maybe more, broad-shouldered and more muscular than most of his cousins. Her hair was shaved on the sides of her head and dyed an outrageous bright pink on the top and back, styled in a sharp ridge, her ears were pierced, the lobes enlarged with disks as big as golden coins and her large, hooked nose and full lower lip sported silver rings.    
She was wearing... well, nothing but bright white tattoos at her throat and forearms and a towel wrapped around her waist, which left her small breasts and her flat, muscular abdomen uncovered.    
Jeggred forced himself to look away, confused by the fact that the sight had been enough to arouse him.    
She was not even pretty, and looked more like a jaluk than like a jalil. He was not that desperate, he told himself.

"Look who's there! - the jalil exclaimed with a broad smile that reached her bright green eyes - Jeggred Baenre, King of Slaughter!" she teased, but her tone lacked the sting of sarcasm. Maybe she really meant it as a compliment.   
"And you must be one of Uthegental's get." he retorted disdainfully.   
"Got it in one! - she replied cheerfully - What gave me away? The piercings? Or the tattoos? The nose, maybe? I've been told I've got my Da's nose, but I don't know, really. He died before I was born." she said.   
Jeggred blinked at her in confusion. Was she for real?   
"Only an Armgo could be so..." Jeggred started.   
"Awesome?" the jalil intervened.   
"I was going to say flamboyant. And disrespectful." he said, growling slightly to alert her that he was already irritated.    
Killing people outside the arena on the days of the Sacred Games was forbidden, but thrashing them was in a grey area of legality, and even though his House and her House had reached an agreement, he doubted his mother was going to be too displeased if he ended up fighting with an Armgo.

"Yeah, well, only a Baenre could be so serious and... well, stiff. Pun fully intended." she retorted, gesturing towards him and Jeggred was hit by the belated realisation that the water was transparent enough that from her vantage point she could totally see his dick standing to nearly full attention.   
"Oh, fuck my life!" he thought, feeling his face nearly burst in flames at the thought, and immediately tried to hide the evidence behind all of his hands at once.   
The Armgo girl let out a short, quiet laugh and shook her head.   
"Easy, boy. There is no need to act like I've never seen a dong before in my life. - she said, still clearly amused - Even though I must admit, I've never seen one quite as impressive as yours, and that's saying something, considering what they say about my House..." she added, tapping a finger to her lips pensievely.   
"Can you stop talking about my... equipment?" Jeggred growled, but no matter how angry, he felt too embarrassed to actually say the word he meant.   
"Heh! So cute! You can't even say it. - the blasted jalil commented - I had been told that Baenre jaluki were prim and proper, but you must be a total beginner at this." she mused, looking at him with a strange, very intense look, one that seemed almost hungry.   
"It is none of your business if I am!" Jeggred seethed, and, thankfully, his anger had finally won over his arousal, so he took his hands off his groin and unsheathed his claws, raising them threateningly towards the intruder.   
"Alright, alright, peace. - the jalil conceded, lifting her arms in a non-threatening gesture - There is no need to start a war between our Houses over your virginity" she added and dropped her towel, standing totally naked in front of him, and he couldn't look away, even though he knew he should have.   
How many other occasions would he have to look at a naked jalil? And this one looked totally unperturbed by his slack-jawed, wide-eyed gawking, or by the way his face started heating up again when he noticed the thicket of white hair perched at the junction of her legs. Now that he thought of it, some white hair had shown even under her arms, when she raised them.

Jeggred was quite baffled. He had never though that jalili could be any hairy anywhere. Jaluki could occasionally grow some facial hair, and might have to deal with the occasional hair on their chest, but from what he had half-seen of his mother's lovers, he had always imagined jalili to be soft-skinned, smooth creatures, with no hair whatsoever apart from their heads.   
  
Maybe the Armgo girl had it because she was overly masculine and unattractive, he mused, but the reaction of his own body belied his arguments. He was rock hard again and somewhere inside his head a small voice had started asking how would that hair feel between his fingers, or even against his face if he knelt in front of her to worship her like a good jaluk ought to do.

She must have noticed his predicament because she smiled a hungry, predatory smile and stepped calmly into the pool, and Jeggred finally understood what a fly might feel when the spider glides towards him on her web: terror and fascination, and a strange desire to submit and be consumed.   
Part of him screamed that he should leg it as fast as he could because this couldn't be anything but a trap, or a ruse to try and ruin the reputation of his House, but another wanted to stay and see what would happen, what would the strange jalil do.    
In spite of the lesson he had just received, deep down he still hoped for some normalcy, even in the form of a quick fuck with a stranger in the baths of the arena.   
That, and he wouldn't flee in front of a single, unarmed Armgo jalil. The reputation of his House would suffer if he did, he told himself, even though he knew it was just an excuse. He just wanted to stay.

"My name is TayRuul, by the way. - the jalil said as if nothing had happened - But you can call me Tay, if you wish. Everyone does. I can call you Jay, if you want." she added with a strange mixture of familiarity and challenge.   
Jeggred blinked in confusion.   
"W-why would you want to shorten my name?" he asked.   
She shrugged. "Because it's rather long for a jalil to scream during orgasm." she replied matter-of-factly.   
Jeggred looked at her with a mixture of dismay and desire.   
"O-orgasm...?" he managed to rasp. His throat felt dry as a desert and his dick jumped to attention almost painfully.   
"What... what are you talking about?" he managed to add, sounding a little bit pathetic because of the way his voice caught.   
"I am talking about the fact that I want to fuck you. - Tay replied calmly, as she lathered her arms and chest - Just in case you had not noticed..."

Jeggred looked at her in astonished silence. Was he dreaming? Was this one of those dreams from which one awoke soiled and aching?   
"I watched you fight during that venatio, and... you know you are sexy, right?" she asked.   
Jeggred shook his head most emphatically. Sexy, him? What was she talking about? He was a freak, a hybrid, not drow enough, just one step above being  _iblith_ ...   
"No, I guess you don't. - Tay continued, shaking her head in turn - Trust me: you are, and very much, at least to me. I loved watching you fight. By the end of the venatio I was totally drenched and aching. If I had found you, I would have totally jumped your bones, but you went back to the honour tribune and I had my own fight to take part in, so..." she explained, still washing herself as if she was talking about nothing more than the price of mushrooms at the bazaar, and Jeggred couldn't help but listen to her words and want to believe in the strange world that they painted.   
"I didn't come here specifically to fuck you, though. I thought you had gone home with your folks, and I just wanted to have a bath." Tay continued, rinsing the suds off her smooth black skin, muscles rippling like steel under silk.   
He had been hasty in judging her earlier. She was beautiful. Maybe it was a different kind of beauty from what others appreciated, but with those strong limbs, sharp tongue and rough edges, she just did the trick for him, and now he found himself entranced and aching with desire. It was a dangerous situation to be in, he reminded himself, trying to keep some clarity, but the more she talked, the more it faded.

"But then I saw you, and I though I was so fucking lucky. - she continued, her vouce shifting with something soft and happy - I told myself: 'the Goddes knows when his mother is going to let him fool around unsupervised, I'd better take this chance'. So here I am. What do you say to that? Are you game?" she asked.   
"Why?" Jeggred managed to ask.    
"Why what?" Tay retorted, quirking an eyebrow and crossing her arms below her breasts.   
"Why do you want to... that? - Jeggred asked, defeated once more by his embarrassment - I have no traction on my mother or my House. I am a glorified servant with no decisional power. You won't get anything from... this assignement." he explained, growling with the rage that had been dormant within him since the venatio. That must be the reason she was doing it. Matron Mez'Barris must have sent her to do some unconventional deal-brokering.   
What else could she be after? It just didn't check out.

Tay laughed and, damn him, even though she was most likely a liar setting up a honey-trap, he found even her laughter attractive.   
"If I wanted something from your mom, I would have fucked your mom. - she declared without mincing words - I know it is hard to believe, but I just want to fuck you. You're a huge dude with a huge dong, who can rip people apart with his bare hands and looks good covered in blood, and I'm a jalil who happens to be awfully turned on by the aforementioned features. Therefore..." she explained quietly, wading towards him.   
"Alright." he whimpered, standing up and backing against the side of the pool in a paroxism of arousal and terror. He was in the deepest part of the pool, but the water barely reached his hips and his dick was mostly out of the water, pulsating quietly in time with his heartbeat. His resolve had lasted about a handful of heartbeats before crumbling.

"Alright, what?" she asked, coming even closer, hips swaying below the water. She traced a finger on his chest and he whimpered again, a wordless sound of need. His upper hands were clenched on the stony rim of the pool, while his lower ones were closed into tight fists and still itched to touch her.   
"Please..." he added, titling his head backwards to expose his neck in a display of submission.

"You have to say it." she whispered, taking advantage of the opening to inch even closer, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her skin through the water, but not close enough for contact, and it made him burn with the need to close that last gap and press himself onto her.

"I don't know who told you guys that you look sexier if you act shy and make us fight for it all the way. - she commented, fingers toying with the patch of coarse hair at the center of his chest -  It doesn't work for me. I'm not into forcing people. I like to know that my men are into it as much as I am, that they are eager, begging for it." she continued and her hands kept on moving, exploring his skin everywhere she could reach. She pinched his nipple between her fingers, twisting it sharply and he let out a hoarse cry, knees nearly folding underneath him.   
"So you can either show me that you want it too by saying it, or I'm afraid we'll have to leave it at this." she concluded, raking her blunt fingernails over his chest. In another context, the feeling would have hardly registered, but now it made him tremble.

He should say no, there was no way a tryist with a daughter of House Armgo wasn't going to turn into a problem later, but he could not. His whole body was singing with the delight engendered by her touch and by an aching, terrible need for something more.   
That might be his first and last and only chance of knowing the joys of carnal joining and he could not say no.   
"I want it. - he confessed hoarsely - F-fuck me, please..." he added in a whimper, closing his eyes as his blood rushed in his veins, making him dizzy.

"Good boy..." Tay encouraged him, and all of a sudden one of her hands had wrapped around his dick, while the other had started foldling his balls and he couldn't do much more than gasp and whimper for her.   
Her hands were hard and calloused, the hands of a warrior priestess, and they gripped him decisively as they slipped up and down his length, faster and faster, filling him with a sharp, burning delight, and it was as all-consuming as the bloodlust that came upon him during a fight.    
He was hurtling towards something bright and beautiful, and it approached nearer with every squeeze and twist of her hands, with every whispered encouragement, with every playful but sharp bite she was placing on his neck and jaw, and he could feel his body tensing almost painfully. His balls were tight and aching, his dick twitched and pulsed in her hands, his whole body arched and trembled under her touch, and from his lips came strings of incoherent pleas and moans. He had never though he could sound like that: so sultry, so wanton.

He held on to the lip of the pool for dear life as pleasure grew inside him, threatening to burst. He may not know the first thing about sex, but even he knew he wasn't supposed to achieve completion before he had pleasured his jalil, so he ground his teeth and tried to focus on something else, like the texture of the stone against his palms, or the bite of his claws into his smaller hands, but it was to little or no avail.   
"I... I am... close." he managed to warn, even as he bucked desperately in her hand.   
"I can tell. You are beautiful when you lose control. - Tay replied, her voice thick with satisfaction - I want to watch you come."   
"Now?!" he managed to pant.   
"Yes, now. - she replied quietly - Right now. I want to look at you as you come for me. Will you do this for me?" she asked, squeezing him hard, almost to the point of pain but not quite, making him see flashes of light under his eyelids.   
"Yes! Yes, mistress! Please!" he begged, and that submission felt glorious. It was just what he wanted, what he had always wanted.   
She started moving once more and he urged her on: "Harder, mistress, harder!" he said and he didn't even know if it was proper, if it was allowed, but she obliged, fucking him harder and harder, and then the tension that had been coiling within him was released all of a sudden and he was coming hard, his head thrown back, his mouth open in a soundless scream, his eyes squeezed shut and still blinded by flashes of bright, colourful light, like fireworks.   
He could feel his seed spill out of him in thick, convulsive spurts, but Tay didn't stop, she kept on stroking him, drawing it further and further and it felt so good, nearly too good and he trembled and tossed in her hold, and he never wanted to stop.

"Please... please stop." he had to beg at the end, his nerves nearly rubbed raw with too much pleasure.   
Tay let go of him and watched him slump down in the water, weary with his afterglow, his legs trembling, too weak to support him. She looked oddly contented, even though she had given him pleasure without receiving it.   
"It was your first time with a jalil, wasn't it?"she asked, sitting on his lap as if she belonged there (and in a way she did, now), apparently not bothered by the fur covering his legs.   
Jeggred nodded.   
"First time in general." he admitted once he found his voice.   
Tay's eyebrows shot up, her eyes suddenly wide and her mouth open in a perfect O of surprise.   
"Goddess, help me! - she exclaimed fervently - You never even... did it yourself?" she asked, suddenly lost for words too.   
Jeggred shook his head. "I always though it was a bit sad. And I could never imagine this actually happening. Not vividly enough to help, at least." he admitted, tongue loosened by the weary, contented feeling that had nested in his chest and was making his head feel fluffy and light.   
"Fuck!" Tay exclaimed, and suddenly darted forward, pressing her lips forcefully against his and her tongue was probing against them, licking them along the seam, demanding entrance. He hesitated barely a moment before letting her in, and there she was, elven-kissing him like there was no tomorrow, a hand tangled in his hair, pulling sharply to tilt his head and give her better access. She didn't care about his mouthful of fangs, or about the fact that his face was all off-kilter compared to a normal jaluk, kind of frozen between a face and a muzzle, actually, she was kissing him with tongue, lips, teeth and passion and he responded as best as he could, awkwardly at first, but then they kind of found a rythm to their movements, a flow, like in a sparring match, and her hands were carding through his unruly hair and her legs were wrapped around his waist, her front pressed against his chest.

His larger upper hands stayed on the rim of the pool (people usually didn't like to be touched by them), but he gathered his courage and placed his smaller hands on her waist, where it curved so beautifully, flaring towards her hips, and she took it as encouragement and started moving over him, sliding her... womanly parts over his supposedly exhausted dick, which started paying attention almost immediately.   
"I imagined you were going to rebound faster than a regular jaluk, but this is really, really fast." Tay commented, almost out of breath.   
"Is it a bad thing?" Jeggred asked, panting slightly. His lips felt tingly and sensitive, almost bruised. It was a nice feeling.   
"It's mostly a good thing. - Tay replied with a sly smile - It just means that it is time for us to proceed." she added, her smile widening to show sharpish, white teeth.   
"Proceed to where?" Jeggred asked, anticipation and a little bit of anxiety spiking through his veins.   
Tay didn't reply, but slipped out of his lap and hoisted herself up on the edge of the pool.    
He was fascinated by the play of her defined muscles under her skin, and from that perspective he could see other tattoos he had not noticed before. She had a long line of symbols running along her spine from the nape of her neck to the dimples just above her firm buttocks. It must have been quite painful to get it done, but it was surely stunning and Jeggred wished he had the time to run his fingers along them, tracing every symbol, maybe kiss every one of them.

"Would she like it?" he asked himself, but then she turned and spread her legs wide, revealing herself completely to him, and all his thoughts flew out of the window.   
He tried to keep eye-contact, but his gaze kept on straying lower, to the bounty she had revealed, the wet curls on her pubis, the glistening folds that enveloped her slit, slightly gaping already, invitingly so, and the swollen nub of flesh at the apex.   
"Do you like what you see?" she asked, tracing her folds with a finger.   
Jeggred nodded, unable to formulate a coherent thought.   
"I want you to go down on me. - she announced - I want you to kiss me and touch me and make me come as hard as you've come. Do you want to do this?" she asked, capturing his gaze with her own.   
Jeggred nodded again.   
"I do." he rasped as he lowered himself to his knees in front of her, placing his face more or less level with her womanhood. He needed her to know that he was totally into it.    
He had fantasized a lot about being asked to do something like this by a jalil, to selflessly pleasure her for as long as she wanted, without asking anything in return, and finally, finally it was going to happen. He might literally die of heartbreak if she didn't let him.

"I've never..." he added a moment later, feeling suddenly ashamed and inadequate. What if she didn't like it? What if he couldn't please her as he should?   
"I had imagined, but don't worry, it's not trasmutation magic." she reassured him.   
"Will you teach me? - he asked, looking up at her - I want to give you all the pleasure that you desire. I want to make you happy." he confessed, and her eyes darkened and flashed with something warm and deep for a moment.

"Are you for real?!" she asked.   
"I suppose so. Why?" he retorted, confused by the abrupt change of topic.   
"Because this was supposed to be a casual fuck and the way you are acting... I don't know, it doesn't even feel casual anymore." she replied, sounding confused herself.   
"How so?"Jeggred retorted, tilting his head to one side in perplexity.   
Tay shook her head. "I... it's hard to explain. - she said - You're so eager, I mean, I asked you to go down on me and it seems like I've given you a present, and usually boys do it because they have to, but they are not happy about it... and, I don't know... it feels already too important." she added, lowering her head and fractionally closing her legs.   
"It is to me. - Jeggred said - All my life I was always told that I wasn't enough for lots of things: for the Academy, for the Games, for a jalil. I can see why, do you think I can't? Do you think that I don't see the difference between me and normal people? I do, and I fucking hate it, and some days I wish I could drain the demon blood from my veins and be normal, but I can't. I am this, and this was never enough, until you came and told me it was enough for you, until you told me that you wanted me more than normal people. You made me feel... I don't know, normal? Not a freak? That can never be not important to me." he said and he knew wasn't very good with words, but he had to try to make her understand, because that was important too.   
"And I know that it is just a one-off casual fuck, and I'm fine with it. It's already a miracle that I had this much. - he continued when she didn't say anything but just looked at him quietly - But I am happy that it is happening, and I really want to do whatever you dream up. I want to try everything that makes you happy. Really, you can't even imagine how important this is, and how grateful I am towards you." he added, panting slightly. He could not remember another occasion in which he had talked so much all at once.

"And a Baenre always pays her debts." she butted in with a smirk.   
"That too. - Jeggred conceded with a curt nod - But this particular Baenre just want to go down on you until you scream whatever version of his name you prefer." he added with a smirk of his own.   
"I would have never imagined, but you are quite a sweet-talker. - Tay commented, ruffling his hair affectionately - Shall we see if you're as proficient with that tongue of yours in other respects?" she proposed, spreading her legs once more.   
"Your wish is my command, mistress... - he replied, still smiling confidently - What do you want me to do?" he asked.   
"Nothing specific, for now. Just give it a try to begin with. - she replied, sinking her fingers in his hair and gently pushing his face towards her... parts - Kissing, licking and sucking is fine. No biting." she instructed.   
"Alright." he said and bent down to his task, placing a tentative, close-mouthed kiss on her nub. Tay made a quiet, pleased sound.   
"Did that feel good?" he asked. She hummed in assent.   
"And this?" he asked again, just before he gave her nub a good, long lick. She jumped a bit and made a low throaty sound.   
"Better." she admitted breathily.   
"And this?" he insisted, and this time he took the nub between his lips and sucked on it gently and she let out a pleased little scream, tightening the hold on his hair. His heart did a happy flip at the sound.   
"And what about this?" he asked finally, licking her slit in one long sweep and then daring to slide the tip of his tongue inside her. She tasted sweet and salty at the same time. She tasted good.

"Aw, fuck! - she exclaimed - Are you always such a fast learner?" she added, a bit breathless, but with laughter in her voice.   
"Not really. - he admitted - It must be beginner's luck." he added as a joke.   
"Let's see if it holds, then." Tay proposed and he obliged entusiastically, eager to try out something that had just crossed his mind.   
Pleasure and pain should not be very different, in essence.    
It was all about nerves and stimuli and therefore the same principles should apply to both: too much of the same stimulus and you'd get a smaller response, the same predictable pattern, repeated over and over, and the other person would start to know what to expect, and the experience would lose that edge of uncertainty and loss of control that made it so special.   
With this in mind, he started pleasuring her again, starting from one of the things she had identified as pleasurable and then randomly switching to another, changing tempo and intensity every now and again, and throwing in random pauses, just to keep that edge, and she moaned and screamed for him, arching on the wet flagstones, and for once he was glad that his mother had trained him in the finer points of torture, because he couldn't get enough of Tay's pleasure and reactions.

Now he finally understood what she meant when she had said that she had been wet for him. Her slit was drenched, flushed with warmth and gaping and he wanted to be inside her so badly that he could barely think about anything else.    
"Fuck, Jay! This is...! Oh! So good! - Tay exclaimed -  Slow down, just a moment, will you?" she asked urgently.   
Jeggred froze immediately.   
"Did I hurt you?" he asked with evident dismay.   
"No. Not at all. I just want to show you something. - she replied, breathing hard - Give me your hand." she ordered.   
Jeggred let her grab his lower right hand. Now that his claws were fully retracted, it looked just like a drow hand, just a bit bigger than normal. It looked like it could belong against hers.   
Tay made him close his finger in a fist, except the index and then, without warning pushed it inside her slit.   
"Oh, Goddess help me... you're so warm..." he groaned, closing his eyes and baring his fangs in a grimace. His cock started throbbing madly and he didn't even know how he managed to pull himself back from the brink. He couldn't come yet, not before her, and he didn't even want to, not if there was any chance of being inside her, even just for a moment.   
"Shhh... hold on. - she whispered, guiding him towards something - Can you feel anything?" she asked, making him slide his fingertip over a certain area of her inner walls. Jeggred forced himself to concentrate and after a few tries he actually managed to feel something, a slightly rougher patch of the diameter maybe of a copper coin. Tay's breath hitched when he rubbed it with his fingertip and he understood that this was what she wanted him to find.   
"Yes." he whispered.   
"Touch me there, this time." she instructed.   
Jeggred nodded once more and obeyed, lavishing his attentions on her nub while his finger worked over that spot, rubbing and pressing gently, and her moans rose in pitch and volume, interspersed with praise and encouragement, and even if she didn't give him anything more, he would be content of having had that, that was making her gush with wetness, that was making her inner walls flutter harder ans harder.   
"Jay! Fuck!... I'm going to..." she exclaimed and then she arched really hard, tensing like a bowstring.   
A scream tore from her lips, and her inner walls started convulsing, and she tossed her head on the floor, even as her grip on his hair tightened almost painfully. He nearly came too, just from seeing and feeling her like that, so beautiful, so lost to her pleasure... and it was because of him.   
She screamed for him not to stop, that he was going to make her come again, and he continued and she really did, once, twice more maybe, and he would have never stopped, not for all the gold in Menzoberranzan, except that eventually she yelled at him to do so.

"Did... did I hurt you?" he asked once more, pushing himself away from her and then taking an extra step back for safety. He had been really careful to keep his claws sheathed and mind his strength, but in the heat of the moment he might have slipped up.   
She didn't reply immediately, she was too out of breath, and he started to freak out even though he couldn't see or smell any blood upon her. What had he done wrong? Why did he always mess things up?

"Jay! Jeggred!" Tay called, and from the tone it didn't sound like the first time. He must have spaced out, he realised, snapping out of his funk. He looked up towards her, expecting something bad, but she was smiling, instead.   
"It's alright. You haven't hurt me. - she said - I was just overloading. It happens when it is too good. It  becomes a bit too much, but it doesn't hurt and it's not your fault. That's how pleasure works." she explained.   
Jeggred felt incredibly relieved, but at the same time incredibly stupid and childish, inadequate for the situation.   
"I... I apologise." he said quietly.   
"Don't. Just don't. - Tay scolded - Come here, I'm not done with you yet." she instructed, patting the floor next to her.   
Jeggred hoisted himself up obediently and sat next to her on the warm flagstones, waiting. In the earlier moment of panic, his dick had lost most of its tension and now hung limp and pathetic between his legs, like a memento of his inadequacy, but Tay didn't seem much daunted.   
She took it in her hands again and started to stroke it once more, but it didn't seem very convinced anymore and responded only half-heartedly to her attentions. Jeggred had to bite his tongue to prevent a torrent of excuses from pouring out of him.   
"It's not a problem that it's gone soft, you know? - Tay whispered as if she had overheard his thoughts - It's good that you're restarting from square one. Jaluki always come real fast the first time they are in a jalil." she added, leaning into him to nibble at his ear.   
"W-what...?! Do you...?!" he asked.   
She nodded. "I want you inside me. - she replied, still whispering in his ear, her body plastered against his - As soon as you are hard enough, and for as long as you can. Did you really think I was going to miss out on this?" she asked and she gave him a good squeeze. His groan was swallowed by her lips as she kissed him once again, even harder than the first time, as if she wanted to devour him. He would have let her.   
To be so wanted... it was the best thing that had ever happened to him, a balm to cure all his doubts and insecurities.

Between her touch and her furious kisses he was hard again in a moment, and true to her word, she soon moved to straddle him and lined herself up, rubbing her wet, warm slit against the head of his cock teasingly.   
"Do you want this?" she asked, breaking the kiss.   
Jeggred nodded frantically, tensing already to brace for it.   
"Yes..." he managed to hiss between clenched teeth.    
Tay deposited a light peck on his lips and started to let herself sink on his length, slowly and steadily. That wonderful heat started to engulf him, soft and wet and tight... so tight.   
A soft keening escaped him. If he had thought that her touch was heavenly, this was beyond comprehension.    
"Look at me." Tay ordered.   
The green of her eyes had been consumed almost completely by the black of her dilated pupils, and her lips were swollen from their kisses.   
He watched her as she slowly took him in, shifting and squirming as she adjusted, until he was as deep inside of her as he could possibly get and totally overwhelmed by the feeling.   
"You feel so big... so good..." she whispered, leaning her head on his chest and breathing hard.    
"Please, Tay... please... - he pleaded - Move... Fuck me... I need..."   
"No. - she replied - You're going to be on top."   
"What?!" Jeggred exclaimed, not for the first time during their encounter.   
"Listen, I am a big, strong girl, right? The only guys who are as big as me are either my brothers or my cousins. I always end up with guys who are much smaller than me, and it's alright, I guess. - she explained urgently - But for once I want to know how it feels to be held down and fucked by someone who is much bigger and stronger than me." she concluded, nipping at his ear.   
"I... I will end up hurting you. - Jeggred objected, his head clearing slightly in alarm - I can hurt you pretty badly if I am not careful, believe me, and I don't know if I can keep any sort of control if I... do it. You feel too good." he argued.    
He wanted to do what she asked with an intensity that frightened him, but he wanted her to enjoy it too, and it would not be fun at all if he ruptured something inside her by mistake. And those mistakes happened to him with impressive regularity when he handled prisoners. He had to be really, really careful not to break them when he toyed with them.

"Don't worry Jay. You won't hurt me. - she replied with utter confidence - These are not just for aesthetics, they hold protection dweomers." she revealed, pointing at her tattoos.   
"When I activate them, you're going to have to try really hard to actually hurt me." she added.   
"Talk about being prepared." Jeggred commented with admiration and a huge amount of relief.   
"Always be prepared." she retorted with a smirk, then whispered something arcane-sounding and her tattooos started to glow faintly and warm up.   
"Ready when you are." she announced breathily.

Jeggred lost no time in flipping them over. He braced on the floor with his combat hands, bracketing her head, and placed his smaller ones on her waist, angling her hips so that he could sink fully inside her, and she squirmed underneath him, moaning already. It was as good as he had imagined and then some.   
"Move. - she panted moments later - Come on, move."   
His desire to savour the moment and the knowledge that they were lucky that no one had come into the room yet battled briefly in his mind, but eventually the need to proceed won.   
Jeggred tilted his hips, sliding out of her almost completely, and then pushed back in gently, feeling her inner muscles relax slowly around him as he moved in and out of her, until he could move unimpeded, without catching anywhere and hurting her.   
"Harder. Faster.  I am not going to break. Come on!" Tay whined, trying to buck underneath him, even though she didn't really have the leverage to move much. He realised that, if he wanted to, he could trap her underneath him and keep that slow pace for as long as he wanted to, making her pleasure and frustration grow together, until she would beg him to fuck her... the thought sent a thrill of pleasure through his veins, but he knew he didn't have the time or the privacy required for that endeavour.   
"Maybe next time." he told himself, even though he suspected there would be no next time unless he was really, really lucky or he made her like it enough to want a second helping. Frustrating her would not be the best way of going about it, though.

"You asked for it." he warned, then hooked his lower arms under her legs and lifted them over his lower shoulders. He thrusted sharply, hoping to hit that spot she had showed him, and she cried out as sharply,  hands tightening on his upper arms almost painfully.   
"Good?" he managed to ask, pushing into her again.   
"Yes, yes! Fuck!" she exclaimed, her face twisted in an exstatic grimace.   
And fuck her he did.

He had meant to keep a steady rythm to his thrusts, at least for a little while, but her long, strong legs were wrapped around his back hard enough to break a lesser man in two, and from her lips spilled an incessant litany of moans and cries and curses, and her body arched into his as if she could never get enough of him, and he lost himself.   
He slammed himself into her harder and harder and she took it gladly, eagerly, and he could tell she was getting closer to her climax, tensing, trembling, and he was close too, hanging by a mere thread, and then suddenly she pulled herself up somehow and her teeth closed around his collarbone, hard enough to break skin, and it was as if a switch had been thrown inside him: the dam broke and he came hard, roaring his pleasure to the sky as his spine bowed and his hips snapped against her and she was coming too, clamping around him and screaming into the bite, and he felt his heart nearly miss a beat and his mind blank completely, all thoughs erased by that incredible, all-consuming pleasure.

"I don't think I have ever come at the same time as a jaluk, before..." Tay commented quietly, some time later.   
They were lying on their backs next to each other at the edge of the pool, legs dangling in the water. Tay's fingers were tracing lazy patterns onto the forearm of one of Jeggred's combat arms while he just lay there, enjoying the feeling.   
"Did... did you like it?" he asked. His thoat felt a bit raw from the way she had made him roar.   
"Didn't you notice?" she asked, propping herself up on an elbow to sneak in his field of view.   
Jeggred turned his head towards her with a lazy smile.   
"I think I did. - he replied - But I can't be sure. You bit me." he added, touching his collarbone. It was wet and slightly sticky. Jeggred looked at his fingers with a detached feeling of amazement. She had bit him hard enough to break skin, hard enough to draw blood. He didn't know why he liked the idea so much.

Tay took his hand (it was one of the big ones and she had to use both of hers to hold it) and smirked.   
"You taste good." she declared, and kissed his bloodied fingers, sucking on the tips to clean the blood away.   
Jeggred groaned and closed his eyes.   
"I hope it will leave a scar." he confessed.   
"Careful, your sentiments are showing." she teased, laughing quietly.   
"What sentiments? - he retorted with a hissy chuckle - Next time someone says I will never have a jalil, I'll show them the mark as a proof that I did." he joked. He was not going to brag about it. What happened in that room was private.   
"You're such a bad liar, Jay. - she chided - You should stick to the truth."   
"The truth is that I want to remember this. - he retorted - Can you blame me?" he asked, looking straight into her eyes.   
Tay shook her head, then leaned over him to kiss him. This time it was gentle and slow, soft and full of something bittersweet, almost sad, and it was over way too soon.

"We should clean up and go. - she said finally, moving away from her - It's probably really late."   
Jeggred nodded and sat up. No matter how perfect, that had only been an interlude; they had to go back to reality, now.   
They cleaned up and dressed up in silence, turned away from each other. It felt awkward, after what they had shared.   
"So this is it." he said, when they were both dressed (she more than him, seeing that his outfit consisted of shorts, belt, bracers, a cloak and nothing else).   
"I guess. - Tay replied with a shrug - Or perhaps not." she added with a smirk and a challenging look.   
In spite of himself, Jeggred perked up.   
"There is a party at the Velvet Spider in a tenday. The cadets of the last year are organising it to celebrate their departure for their first official Academy raid. - she revealed - If you manage to escape your mother long enough to get out of Castle Baenre and fancy some fun..." she teased.   
"I will be there." Jeggred declared in the spur of the moment.   
"Don't make promises you cannot mantain." Tay warned, walking towards the door.   
Jeggred shot forward, blocking her path.   
"I will be there." he repeated.   
Tay rose to her tiptoes and gave him one last, bruising kiss.   
"You'd better." she said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains BDSM, feels and a bit of people taking their issues out on other people, plus tons of gender roles reversal and, as you can imagine, explicit content.  
> Warning: referenced bullying/abuse, slight abuse on-screen even, explicit sex scenes

"Don't keep your hopes up." Tay told herself as she crossed the threshold to the club alongside a small group of cousins, nephews and nieces, plus a few sons and daughters of vassals and retainers.

Being the youngest of the Daughters and just recently out of the Academy herself, she was often tasked with supervising the unruly pack of Armgo youngsters as they roamed the City, but she didn't mind. She didn't have any plans to settle down anytime soon and was quite happy to prolong her adolescence a bit further. Between that, the tattoo shop and her research job at the Academy, she was more than busy enough.

The pacts drawn up by the Ruling Council after the debacle of the war against Mithral Hall had meant a sharp decline in deadly violence between Houses, but that didn't mean that the coast was necessarily clear. Brawls between youngsters and even real deal ambushes after parties and social gatherings were becoming an increasingly common outlet for rivalries and tensions, even more than duels between swordmasters, so Tay scanned the party-going crowd attentively, trying to detect the signs of an impending attack or attrition, but as far as she could tell, everybody seemed too busy getting plastered to actually concoct any dastardly plan. The air inside the club was warm and moist and thick with the sweet scent of narcotics and the sicklier one of spilled an trampled alcohol and sweat.

On the stage, a kid from House Mizzrym was playing a modified assassin's lute, using a bunch of cantrips and minor dweomers to distort and amplify the sound as he wished, and to project swirls of faerie fire all around him in synch with the music. The people in the front row seemed totally entranced, but that might have also been the weed that they had been smoking and the brandy they had been imbibing.  
One side of the main dancing-room was taken up by a low bench, behind which worked several drow or half-drow servers, intent on mixing what in their intentions were supposed to be fine exotic concoctions, but usually ended up being extra-alcoholic and tasting all the same. It was fair enough, though, as far as Tay was concerned. They did what they were supposed to do, they made people drunk, and they were relatively cheap, as befit a club aimed at youngsters who just wanted to have uncomplicated fun.

The Velvet Spider was reasonably high-end, but not too much and it was frequented also by merchant's sons and daughters, which to her was just a bonus, as that meant that the narcotics were the best around and the music was actually for dancing and not just for commenting to each other how interesting and thought-provoking it was.  
That also meant that, apart from official Academy nights, the club was blessedly free of Baenres, Dyrrs and Xolarrins.

That night, instead, several of the best tables (the tables which on normal nights were basically House Armgo property) were taken up by a small crowd of Baenre kids and their retainers, and a few Dyrrs and Xolarrins could be seen through the crowd, which was mostly made up of cadets from the lower-ranking Houses.  
House Armgo was still the biggest group in the club, as usual, but the Baenre contingent looked slightly bigger than usual.  
Tay's kin couldn't help but notice either, it seemed.

"Do you think they let the babies out of the nursery too? - her nephew Andor commented, not quite under his breath - Those ones over there seem so puny..." he commented, from the top of his 5'10" stature.   
Her older brothers Kal and Al were taller, but he was the tallest jaluk of the group and likely to get taller, seeing that he was still a gangly Third-year.  
"Nah, kiddo, the Baenres are just that short. - replied her cousin Freckles - Once I had Archmage Gromph pass just by me and he's, like, tiny, I swear. He can't be much more than 5'2". she added.   
Freckles was one of the lowest-ranking cousins, a grand-daughter of old Uncle Guluth and his famed half-elven maid, and as such she didn't get to go to Arach-Tinilit, but had been destined to a career in the arcane arts, instead. She didn't do too badly for herself, though: she was out of the rat race of succession, had access to a lot of desperate jaluki who hardly saw another jalil during term-time, and had acquired valuable alchemy skills that had already allowed her to set up a company to produce a new kind of textile dyes, increasing even further the revenues of House Armgo.  
Even though she was lighter-skinned and freckled, she didn't look or behave like a reject, because she was not. She was a valuable member of the Family and to be honest, the Matron Mother was quite fond of her too.

"Hang on, didn't you say that you wouldn't mind banging him?" asked Weiss, another nephew, looking a bit horrified.  
"Yeah, so what? I like short dudes." Freckles retorted.  
"Old dudes, you meant to say. - cousin Saph, short for Saphiithra, like her grandmother, butted in - He's old as balls. There is no older drow alive in Menzo, like, literally." she added, wrinkling her pierced nose.  
"It's all experience." Freckles retorted with a shrug.  
"And it's not true either." one of the youngest Armgo intervened, a little kid nicknamed Snip who was a son of her brother Kaitain, the House Mage. He was in the First Year of the Academy of Arcane Arts and was a huge magic nerd.  
"Old Dyrr is older. He is about as old as Yvonnel the Deathless would be if she hadn't, you know, died." the kidlet added.  
"That's old as balls." Freckles intervened.  
"So anyone younger than a thousand is fair game, then?" Saph insisted.  
"Why not? And I heard he likes taller ladies." Freckles insisted.  
"Well, he'd better, because otherwise he would have to stick to his sisters." Saph commented.  
"Yeah, and everybody knows they don't actually like jaluki." cousin Halyra added, shaking her head.  
"Too lowly and unrefined for the likes of them..." Halyra's sister Haleen added, placing a hand on her forehead in a dramatic gesture.  
"Well, girls, some jaluki are not actually smart enough to even know where their asses are without a map and instructions, but what can I say? I still like dick." Freckles commented.  
"Yeah, and it's not like you actually need to talk with them. Just sit on their faces and they'll shut up alright." Saph agreed, for once, much to the amusement of all the other jalili in the group.   
The boys didn't mind, of course: they knew it was just good-natured, harmless banter. House Armgo wasn't the sort of place where a jaluk had to mind his step all the time if he didn't want to be beaten up by his female relatives or end up on the "torturable people list". There were better ways of keeping the jaluki in line, and the best one was to treat them well enough to make sure that they had no reason to stray or rebel.

As fun as it might be, this time Tay wasn't much interested in partecipating in the usual banter, though.  
She was more interested in scanning the Baenre crowd over and over, in the frankly pathetic hope that she would be able to find Jeggred. He was nearly 8', so if she had not found him the first time around, it must mean that he wasn't there, for all his impassioned declarations.  
His mum must have ordered him to stay put and he must have obeyed. Tay should have imagined that he wouldn't risk disobeying his Matron Mother for another meaningless fuck with a jalil of a rival House. In such a traditionalist House, that kind of stunt would have had consequences, if discovered. Maybe Jeggred wasn't the sharpest knife in the Baenre drawer, but even he wasn't so stupid that he would not realise it.

She knew that she shouldn't have banked on the boy's good intentions, but she had held her hopes high nonetheless. She had even given the manager of the club a hefty sum of money to block out one of the small private rooms for her and keep her mouth shut about it, all in the misplaced hope of another mind-blowing fuck.  
And between the thrill of the forbidden, the franticness of it, and the boy's evident endowment and enthusiasm, their previous one had been properly mind-blowing, the kind of stuff that made you want to keep a jaluk around for when the itch needed to be scratched.

"I'm going to get a drink. - she announced to her kin - Remember to buddy up and stay close to each other wherever you go. If you and your buddy get lost, don't wait around and leg it straight home, alright?" she instructed.  
"Alright, Commander!" the little shits yelled back.  
Tay sighed and shook her head.   
"And behave, if you can. Mother'd rather not pay to refurbish another bloody club like last time." she added, much to the family's amusement.  
She shook her head again and started towards the bar, cutting through the crowd thanks to her larger stature and the insignia of her House pinned to her jacket.  
"A Narbondel Lightrise." she told the bartender and he started layering several different coloured liquors one on top of another in a big tumbler glass, then set the top layer on fire with a minor cantrip.  
The alcohol flame was blue instead of red like in the real deal, but the resemblance was still quite striking.  
Tay blew out the flames and gulped down a healthy dose of cocktail. The alcohol kicked in her system almost straight away, taking the edge off her disappointment.  
The Underdark was full of jaluki who wanted nothing better than a good fuck, and she wasn't the one who couldn't get laid for as much as she tried. She would find someone even better looking and less complicated than him soon enough. It was nothing but his loss, she told herself, draining her drink and slamming the glass on the bar as if it had done something to offend her personally.

"Another!" she yelled at the barman, who rushed to prepare another cocktail and place it in front of her, taking away the other glass and scurrying away. Jaluki who worked in customer service were wise to be wary of drunken jalili. She had heard crazy stories about assaults and even murder if the unlucky bastards didn't reciprocate a soused jalil's advances or even just because.

For all her show of downing her drink nearly in one go, Tay however was not drunk yet. Being so big meant also that she resisted the effects of alcohol more than most, and therefore needed a lot more booze to get properly plastered.   
At present she was only a bit buzzed and she didn't plan to go much further than that, even though she had bought another drink. It was not safe to get too drunk at such gatherings, one never knew who might be lurking in the shadows in wait.

Speaking of what, Tay had the distinct impression that someone might be staring at her. She felt observed, but a discreet glance around didn't reveal any obvious observer, which meant that whoever was interested in her was hiding. Things might be about to become interesting, she told herself.

The stage was pretty well illuminated, for a drow establishment, but the corners of the room were in near-total darkness. Tay closed her eyes and let her eyes switch to heat-vision.  
There was someone sitting alone in one of the corner tables, probably cloaked with a piwafwi or some kind of enchantment to muddle their heat-signature, but still warm enough to be discernible against the background.

Tay grabbed her glass and walked that way as if she owned the place, letting her hips sway with each step.   
"Did you see something you like, stranger?" she asked the shadow, stopping next to their table with her hips cocked at an angle and her arms crossed under her breasts.  
"Well, yes: you." a familiar gravelly, rumbling voice replied from the depths of the shadow.   
The enchantment faded and the shadow lifted, revealing none other than a very embarrassed Jeggred. He had curled up under a piwafwi to appear smaller, but now that he had been found he straightened up with an audible creak of sinews and a goofy, fangy smile.

"What's with the cloak and dagger crap, pretty boy?" Tay asked, sitting next to him on the bench.  
"My family doesn't know I'm here. I wasn't invited and I didn't have the heart to ask, so I had to sneak out." he explained in a rough, excited whisper.  
"Is this the first time you did something like this?" she asked.  
Jeggred nodded.  "I never disobeyed my mother before. - he confessed, hunching his shoulders in an instinctive cringe - Technically I am not disobeying her even now, as she hasn't given me any direct orders about this party... but I doubt she'd be pleased if she knew where I am and with whom." he explained, giving her a sidelong, but doubtlessly appreciative, glance.  
Tay smirked. She had dressed to impress, with a short studded jacket over a fishnet top and a bright white triangle bra, and low-waisted, lizardskin hot-pants over fishnet hose, plus her battle-gear boots to let everyone know that she meant business. She was glad that he was suitably impressed.

To be honest, he looked like he had put some effort in his appearance too.   
His unruly, slightly curly hair had been brushed and somehow smoothed out into a semblance of order, his sideburns had been trimmed slightly and the fur on his lower legs looked clean and shiny, while his vambraces and belt had been polished to a shine and his shorts were new and more dressy than the pair he had worn to the Games, lower cut to show off the lean muscles in his lower abdomen and patterned with embroidery. He was even wearing some sort of top, beneath the cloak.  
He still looked wild, but better cared for, or just fractionally more confident, and the look suited him. She was glad he had made the effort for her.

"Yeah, because I'm a notorious corruptor of virgins." she teased, leaning towards him and placing a hand over his tigh, quite close to his groin. By the way he shifted and squirmed, she could tell he was hard and willing already.  
"But then again, maybe I am, because I surely corrupted you." she added sweetly, inching her hand closer.  
"C-can you quit talking about... that?" Jeggred rasped, his breathing already laboured, his purple eyes dark and wide. Tay loved how responsive he was.  
"What, your virginity? - she asked, draping an arm over his shoulders and leaning onto him to whisper in his ear - I won't, because I totally took it. I snapped your precious little thread and the fact is that you asked me to." she continued and let her hand slide further up along his tigh, until her fingers brushed against the bulge in his shorts.  
Jeggred hissed between clenched teeth and tensed. The claws of his bigger hands bit into the wood of the table, leaving evident scratches, while his smaller pair of hands was balled into fists at his sides.  
"You begged me to fuck you and you couldn't get enough of it." she continued, placing open-mouthed kisses on his neck, along the pulse.  
His skin smelled like something smoky and sweet, with only the barest hint of demonic sulphur, and run hotter than a normal drow's. She liked all of it.

"I bet you touched yourself thinking of it - she continued, savouring the helpless little shivers that were running down his powerful frame - You tried to fuck your own fist but it wasn't the same, wasn't it? It wasn't enough." she whispered, letting her fingers brush his trapped dick again.  
He whimpered and nodded, closing his eyes and letting his head fall backwards.  
"Nh... nothing can compare, mistress... nothing..." he said once he found his voice.   
She smirked, pleased, and nipped him lightly, elicting more low moans.  
"So now you're back for more, aren't you, you needy, shameless creature?" she continued, placing her hand on his bulge and kneading it gently but firmly as he tilted his hips and spread his legs for her, whimpering quietly, his fangs bared in an expression of torment and pleasure. His shorts looked painfully tight now, the outline of his large, thick cock starkly evident against the fabric.

Tay was briefly taken by the idea of making him come into his pants right there where he was, but, even though it was incredibly hot and dirty, she discarded it upon further consideration.   
Nearly his whole family was there. Their attention was elsewhere, that was true, but things could change quickly, and according to what little she knew, Jeggred was a bit of a screamer, not unlike her, in fact. Even if she somehow managed to keep him quiet, he would still have a hell of a time explaining how his best trousers had gotten stained like that.

"You want me to fuck you again, don't you?" she asked, squeezing him none too gently.  
Jeggred bit back a cry (he too must have realised he needed to be quiet) and nodded frantically.  
"You need to say it." she insisted, squeezing him again.  
Jeggred nearly convulsed on his seat and one of his smaller hands pressed on hers, stilling it.  
"Slow down... I'm too close." he whined between clenched teeth.  
"A-already?" Tay asked, her confidence faltering slightly at that confession.  
He nodded, breathing hard and looking at her with wide, dark eyes and a cute, embarrassed expression.  
"I thought about this moment for the whole tenday." he confessed quietly, and, Goddess, she loved how he didn't have any taste for power games and just freely admitted her dominion over him.  
"This morning I was in a daze. I could barely function. You and the things you would do to me were all I could think of." he continued.   
His cock twitched in his trousers and Tay reflexively kneaded it once again, tearing another strangled noise from his throat. He was arching, straining.

"I bet you woke up hard already." she whispered and he nodded, his throat working as he swallowed.  
"I bet you touched yourself..." she started, but he interrupted her.  
"No, mistress." he whined "I... I could not. I didn't want to come until you made me." he said.  
"Do you want me to make you come?" she asked, continuing to rub and knead his throbbing cock through the fabric of his shorts.  
"H-here? N-now?" he stuttered.  
"Would you like it?" she retorted. The idea was gaining ground again in her mind: she could always cast a globe of silence around them to ensure their privacy, and cleansing spells were a copper coin a dozen, so why not? It would be fucking risky but it would be worth it.

"B-but my family?" Jeggred asked, sounding less gone than before. Worry must have made him sober up pretty fast.  
"They won't see us here." Tay replied.  
"There is hardly any line of sight from where they are sitting. You picked your spot well. It almost looks as if you had this in mind from the beginning." she praised, giving him a gentle squeeze as a reward. His eyes fluttered closed and he bit back a curse.  
"I-I didn't." he panted.  
"So what did you have in mind for our encounter?" Tay purred, without stopping her caresses.   
He glanced to one side and gestured towards the back door only a few steps away.  
"A quickie in the back alley?" Tay commented, arching an eyebrow.  
"That kind of thing has its merits, but it's too rushed. I have something else in mind for you." she whispered.  
"W-what is it?" he managed to ask.  
"You'll discover it when we're finished here." she replied curtly.  
Her other hand had sneaked up to the nape of his neck and was threading through his hair. It didn't just look smoother, it felt softer too. It made her want to pet him, but that would send totally the wrong message at the moment.  
She grabbed his hair and pulled it, forcing his head back at a sharp angle that exposed his neck, highlighting his frantic pulse and straining tendons.  
"I bet you're so hard that it hurts already..." she continued with another squeeze.  
"It hurts so good..." he admitted, bucking into her hand.  
"Do you want to come?" Tay asked once more.  
"Ngh... Yes, I do... oh, so much... but I... We can't. Not here." he replied, his voice tight with pleasure and the strain of the position.  
"It feels so good... to want it so much, to be so close... but to be unable to..." he practically sobbed.  
And just when she thought that the evening couldn't get any better, it suddenly did, Tay though, feeling a gush of wetness seep into her underwear.

"Alright, Jay. We're done here." she said, taking her hands off him and standing up.  
"Wh-what?!" Jeggred asked, blinking at her in confusion, still sprawled on the sofa.  
"You're right, I can't fuck you in front of your folks, but I want to fuck you senseless, so we're moving." she explained, motioning for him to stand up.  
He gave her another confused look, but didn't contest, rising gingerly to his feet instead. He was so hard it was making it hard for him to walk, Tay realised with a thrill of excitement and imagined how it would feel to back him against the wall in the back alley and stroke him off until he was nearly coming and then force him to walk the rest of the way like that... but no, it would be too rushed and she wanted to take her time in taking him apart.

She led him out of the back door into the alley and then up a flight of stairs to the top floor of the building. That was a safety exit and was normally closed from the outside, but for all the money she had shoved at the owner, she gave her the key to that door, and then another to one of the rooms that abutted the stage.  
Inside there were a few sofas, a table, a pole for private performances and a small bar furnished with plenty of alcohol. A small fountain lay to one side and one of the walls of the room, the one that overlooked the stage below, was completely transparent allowing the occupiers of the room a good view of the performances.

"It's a one-way mirror. We can see them but they can't see us." Tay explained when she saw Jeggred stall at the sight. He sighed in relief.  
"You must have thought about this for a while too." he commented.  
"It was good, last time." she replied "Now why don't you take your clothes off, handsome?"  
Jeggred complied inmediately, shrugging off his cloak and undoing his belt in a moment.  
"Slowly. I want to look at you." Tay stopped him.  
"Uh... alright." he acquiesced. His face was glowing in embarrassment, but he complied again, slowly slipping his top, some sort of tabard made from a thick embroidered cloth that looked like an old curtain, off his muscular shoulders, and then undoing the buttons of his fly one by one with trembling hands.  
Tay savoured the play of his muscles, sharply defined under his smooth obsidian skin, and her mouth nearly watered when his cock sprung out of his shorts as soon as he lowered them a bit, thick and throbbing and flushed with blood.  
"No underwear?" she asked, stalking closer and circling around him.  
Jeggred shook his head.  
"Are you always ready for action?" she teased, brushing a finger against the flushed, silky-skinned head.   
"I... uh... I don't like clothes." he rasped.  
"I like you better naked too. - Tay intervened - Take those shorts off. I want to teach you a game." she added.  
The shorts hit the floor in an instant, and he stepped away from them fully naked and painfully erect. Tay let her eyes roam freely all over him, licking her lips in anticipation.  
"What game is it, mistress?" he asked, fidgeting in place.  
"It's a game in which you we fuck but you are only allowed to come when I tell you so. Do you think you would like it?" she asked.  
Jeggred went totally slack-jawed for a moment, then dropped to his knees in front of her, all but kissing the ground at her feet.  
"Y-yes, mistress..." he panted "Please, use me for your pleasure." he added, looking up at her with raw need.  
"It's not going to be a quick thing, though." she warned "I am going to make you beg for it."  
"Whatever you want." he declared.  
"Alright, stand up." she ordered. There was never any submission gear when one needed it most; she would be forced to improvise.   
"I'm going to bind you. As long as you're bound you cannot come. Alright?" she explained. He nodded, eyeing her with anticipation and a bit of alarm as she removed a couple of her studded leather bracelets and beckoned him closer.  
She looped one of the bracelets around the base of his cock. It was way too large, but a quick cantrip shrunk it to the perfect size to trap him without hurting him. The reaction was immediate and oh, so sweet: he twitched and groaned, and then faltered, laying one of his big hands on her shoulder for support.  
"Oh, mistress..." he gasped.   
"Hold on, I'm not done yet." she said. She quickly looped her other bracelet around his scrotum, pulling his testicles down gently, and then tightened it up, so that they wouldn't be able to rise all the way up again.  
This trick didn't guarantee that he would not be able to come, but it would surely delay it a while, and it had other advantages too.

Tay pulled back, admiring her handywork. He looked vulnerable and exposed like that, bound by her hand and her will. For all his fury and strength, he submitted to her not just willingly, but eagerly and not because he didn't have much choice, but because he chose to.  
Tay let her eyes and hands roam all over him, taking in every detail of his formous difformity, bared for her pleasure, from the tension in his cat-like legs, to the pleading look in his purple eyes, to his twitching, trapped cock, jutting even prouder than usual.  
He was trembling already, made even more responsive than last time by the bonds and the wait, and Tay couldn't get enough of the small, helpless sounds he made as she teased him, fingers gliding feather-light on his skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps.  
"Stay. Don't move." she instructed as she pushed him onto the sofa, and he complied, breathing hard, and sat there with his legs spread to try and relieve the ache of his trapped dick, his gaze half-lidded and unfocused.

Tay stripped slowly before him, teasing him with every inch of skin she revealed, with every shake of her hips as she danced to the music that filtered from downstairs and he drank in the sight of her as if she was the most attractive woman in the world.  
"Oh, mistress... you're perfect... so perfect..." he whispered fervently, but something ugly suddenly clicked in Tay's head, dragging her away from him and that room.

Tay knew she was not a beauty by Menzo standards.   
Her stay at the Academy had taught her that, if anything.   
From the first year onwards, she had lost count of how many times her thin, delicate classmates had harassed her, saying that she was ugly and brutish, stupid and and probably half-caste. Once during that horrible first year, a bunch of older girls from the upper classes had cornered her in the dorm and stripped her naked as she kicked and screamed, because they wanted to check that she wasn't a jaluk in disguise or some sort of in-between freak.   
No matter how much she tried to look more like them, the mockery and abuse wouldn't stop, until finally school was over for the Festival of the Goddess.

She tried to pretend that nothing had happened, she told no one during the holidays, because she didn't want to be known as the Armgo who couldn't fight back, and she thought she was doing fine, until the day before school started again she literally freaked out and went into hysterics, begging her sisters not to make her go back. So much for secrecy...

Popular wisdom had it that a Baenre always paid her debts, but House Armgo always stuck together.  
It wasn't like there were no internal fights for dominance, that would be silly, but faced with an external threat, the Family always banded together and presented a united front, as befit a House with few allies and many enemies.   
Her sisters, especially Val and Vi'an, had stood beside her once she told them what was the problem, supporting her with advice and experience and helping her regain confidence and self-worth. She was a Daughter of House Armgo, she was strong and powerful, her sisters had reminded her and had promised that the other students affiliated with House Armgo would rally to her. That helped, at least a bit.

Her mother was not as angry as she had imagined she would be either, when she came to know, even though she had let the Family down by letting people push her around and then breaking down like a baby. Matron Mez'Barris instead looked sad, most of all.  
"Do you know who your father was?" she asked, even though it didn't seem to have any bearing on Tay's wretched situation.  
Tay nodded. She could hardly not know.  
"He was Weapons Master Uthegental, the best warrior the City has ever had." she replied dutyfully, as she was instructed by her sisters ever since she was a baby.

Her mother slid something towards her. It was a wooden tablet, sanded smooth and painted on one side. The painting was a portrait of a jalil and a jaluk, him standing respectfully behind her, done in colours that were still vibrant despite the age of the tablet, every detail rendered with loving precision.  
The jalil was a younger version of her mother, with the bright green eyes that Tay had inherited, a head full of cornrows woven with beads and golden rings at her nostril and lower lip.  
The jaluk instead was someone Tay had never seen before.

His white hair was short and spiky and he had a whole lot of piercings, all over his ears, through his nose and through his cheeks. He had broad, strong features, a square, sharp jaw and a large hooked nose, just like hers.  
He was smiling, grey-green eyes sparkling with happiness and confidence and his mother smiled too, forever triumphant and young.  
Tay looked and looked, transfixed, instinctively touching her own face for confirmation. She looked so much like the man in the picture that it was uncanny.

"I had this done the day we ousted my mother. It cost a lot of money, but we were young, and drunk with our triumph, and we didn't know how long it was going to last before it all came crashing down on us. We wanted to be able to remember it." her mother revealed. Her voice was soft and affectionate and her eyes were slowly filling up with tears.  
"It did last, in the end. Everything this House is, we built it together, me and him, and if the Goddess assists me, it will outlast us by generations." she added.  
Tay remembered that she looked at that picture again and wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, her feelings piling up all at once, without rhyme or reason.

"He was a slave when I first met him, did you know this?" her mother asked.  
Tay shook her head, horrified by the thought. Her father, the great warrior, a slave?  
"His mother sold him to a mercenary troop when he was a child because he was a freak." her mother revealed.  
"He wasn't..." Tay protested, uselessly trying to defend him though he was dead and could not get offended. He was her father and she was like him, so that meant that she was a freak too, and she didn't want to be.

"He was a freak, Tay. - her mother interrupted, but her voice was gentle - He was and he knew and he never acted like he wasn't. He embraced it, made it his armour and his weapon, his way to tell the world to fuck off. He never apologised for it, and you shouldn't either." she explained.  
"So... so I am a freak too, like they said at school?" Tay asked in a tremulous voice, sniffling to forestall inevitable tears.  
"Yes, Tay, you are a freak, but not like those little bastards said. - her mother replied, but at the same time she hugged her hard, nearly crushing her against her chest - You are different, just like he was, but you're not ugly or stupid, or half-caste, just like he wasn't. You are my daughter and his. You beautiful, and smart and strong and you used to know it, before those little shits got into your head." she said softly, but with a hint of reproach towards the end.

"But if they are beautiful and I am different, how can I be beautiful too?" Tay protested, unconvinced.  
Her mother pulled back slightly, so that she could look at her.  
"There isn't only one kind of beauty, TayRuul, just as there isn't only one kind of strength, or only one kind of anything. - Mez'Barris explained - My mother, Matron Saphiithra, was convinced that to rise through the ranks of nobility, we had to be like the Baenre, so she spent a lot of time and money trying to be like them, but it didn't change anything for us. It just didn't make sense to me. We couldn't out-Baenre the Baenres, they would always be better at being themselves than we'd ever be at copying them." she explained and Tay found herself listening intently and raptly, as if it was a bedtime story.

"So what did you do?" she asked.  
"So we asked ourselves who we were, me, your father and our allies, and we fought to be the best version of ourselves we could ever be. - her mother replied - What we are now, what this House is, for better and for worse, is the result of that fight. We're different, but we have risen farther and faster than anyone else, because we played to our strengths instead of conforming to what the Baenre and their stuck-up cronies thought a council-worthy Noble House should look like." she concluded.  
"And didn't they give you hell for this?" Tay asked.  
"Of course they did, little one. Entitled bastards always do. But we stood strong and persevered and told them to fuck up and die with everything we did. - she replied with a smirk - We embraced loud, and new and weird, and we never looked back. You should have seen Yvonnel's face when I went to my first Council Meeting in my armour and with my hair dyed green... she looked like she had eaten a turd." she reminesced, laughing quietly. Tay laughed with her. It was always nice to hear of the times when her family one-upped the Baenre.

"I wasn't like her, I didn't care for her opinion, and I didn't aspire to be her, and there was nothing she could do to change this. - Mez'Barris continued - I had already won, just by existing unapologetically before her."  
"So that's what I should do? - Tay asked, after a moment of careful consideration - I should be weird?"  
"You should be you, no matter what they say or do, because you will never be them enough for them to stop victimising you, and you shouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing you bend to their will. - her mother replied - So who are you? A sniveling, spineless victim? Someone who will suck up to her tormentors?" she asked then, suddenly harsh and thunderous.

Tay shook her head emphatically, her eyes wide with a blend of horror and fright.  
"Then who are you?" her mother insisted.  
Tay looked at the portrait, at her mother smiling in triumph, at her father, one step behind her, sharing in her joy, even though he was a freak, like her. A happy, successful, unapologetic freak.  
"I am a daughter of House Armgo. Your daughter and his." she replied with renewed determination.  
"Then do go out there and make us proud." her mother ordered.

That evening she made a sacrifice to the Goddess, offering Her the hair she had shorn off her head and the blood that had dripped from her pierced ears and septum, and the following day she had walked into the Academy with a bright green side-shave and golden rings stuck in her ears and nose, to the great horror of her classmates.  
  
She had indeed embraced her weirdness and never apologised for it again, but even though her life was successful and happy, deep down, those twenty-odd years of insults and mockery had left scars within her.   
Even though she had had lots of lovers and fuck-buddies, somewhere inside her she was convinced that they were only there because she was rich and her family was powerful, but not because they really liked her.  
Even Jeggred was there only because he had realised that she was the only one who would fuck him, not because he really found her attractive or beautiful, and the things he said were just part of a script he was supposed to act out to get laid, a little voice inside her whispered.

"Tay! Tay! Is everything alright? Did I say something wrong?" Jeggred asked, with that confused and slightly frightened expression he had when she looked even remotely displeased or angry.  
"His female relatives must beat the shit out of him for almost anything." Tay realised all of a sudden, and her anxiety toned down a notch. At least she was a freak but had a family who stood by her.

"I was just thinking about something." she lied, plastering a smile on her face and closing down on him, still half-dressed.  
"About what?" he asked, managing to look worried and horny at once.  
"It does not matter." she lied again, grabbing his dick and squeezing it hard. He groaned and arched into her touch. Probably he had already forgotten that she had been upset.   
It was just mindless fucking, she told herself. She didn't really need him to feel anything for her to enjoy his huge dick and his submissive streak, but at the same time she wasn't the kind of jalil who could leave well enough alone.

"Now, what did you say before?" she asked, pulling on his hair again and smiling like she wanted to tear his bared throat out.  
"Y-you're p-perfect...?" Jeggred stuttered, still confused and oblivious.  
"Yes, well, why don't you say that again, but like you mean it?" Tay insisted. She squeezed him again and he arched, eyes fluttering closed.  
"B-but I mean it!" he protested.  
"Oh really?!" she snapped, slapping his cock hard enough that her hand stung. That would have ended the night with any other jaluk, but Jeggred just yelped in pleasure.  
"I'm sure you would say the same to any jalil, as long as she would fuck you." she whispered and slapped him again and then once more, and she was supposed to be angry, but how long could it last if he acted like it was the best sex he'd ever had instead of punishment?  
"N-no I would not!" he protested, and she slapped him again, and then once more, but right in the face, as hard as she could.  
"Don't lie to me." she hissed.

Jeggred blinked slowly and shook his head, even more confused and possibly a bit fazed by the blow. His left cheek was becoming red and swollen, she realised with a twinge of horror.  
"I am not lying, I swear. - he said, panting slightly - You are perfect and I wouldn't say it to anyone else, because there is no one else like you in the whole City." he added, and he sounded sincere, as far as she could tell, his expression open and raw and eager.  
Tay felt a wave of remorse crest inside her, but pushed it back and just grabbed his dick as if nothing had happened, pumping it in smooth, even pulls that made his breath hitch and the muscles in his legs and abdomen tense beautifully.  
"There is no one like you, mistress... - he repeated - And I've looked... oh... I've searched, because I needed you so badly that it hurt and I was afraid..." he gasped urgently, words rushing from his mouth like water from a weir.  
"Afraid of what?" Tay asked quietly, repositioning herself on the couch next to him and shifting her grip on him to tease the swollen, flushed head.  She wasn't jealous of her casual fuck - buddy she told herself. She couldn't afford to be.  
"That you had already had your fill of weird and wouldn't want me again. - he admitted, trembling under her - Because if you could have anyone else, why would you want to have me?" he asked, and she could see his point, but she didn't have an answer, not a logical one. She just did.

"So what? No one else would fuck you?" she asked, looking straight into his eyes as she stroked him. The idea pleased her. She didn't really want to share him with anyone else, especially not with prettier jalili.  
Jeggred shook his head. "No... no one else even looks at me the way you do... without disgust... without fear... like I am not a monster." he gasped, arching, twitching. He was so beautiful when he did that, when he just let go...  
"So you're stuck with me." she quipped, squeezing him.   
"I am. And so what? - he retorted between gritted teeth - You're the only one I would want to be fucked by anyway." he declared defiantly, and she slapped him again, on the other cheek and as hard as the first time.

"Ow! What?! What did I do this time?" he protested.  
"New rule. Every time you lie, I slap you." Tay announced.  
"I wasn't lying!" Jeggred retorted, looking crestfallen. Tay slapped him again.  
"I wasn't fucking lying!" he exclaimed, a hint of growl in his voice, but he didn't move, he didn't even twitch, even though he could have torn her into ribbons with hardly any effort.   
"So are you really trying to convince me that if a dainty, slender, silky-haired jalil walked through that door and told you she wanted to fuck you, you'd say no and stick with me?" Tay asked with a burst of mocking laughter.  
"Yes! Exactly!" Jeggred agreed with evident relief and when she raised her hand to hit him again, he finally moved, but only to do the weirdest thing: instead of attacking her, he cringed and raised his hands in front of his face to protect himself from her blows.

"Trying to break the rules?" Tay commented scathingly. She didn't even know why she was going on like that.  
That thing inside her had taken control and was going to ruin everything and she didn't know how to stop it. She wasn't even sure she could.  
"Yes, because I'm not lying, but you don't want to believe me and I don't know how to convince you! I know there is something wrong, but I don't know what it is, so I can't fix it. - Jeggred replied, nearly trembling again, but for all the wrong reasons - Please, tell me what I did wrong. I want to fix this. I just wanted to be with you, like last time, because it was wonderful... you were wonderful." he added, and by the time he had finished he was basically sobbing and his eyes were full of tears and it should have looked pathetic and laughable, but her heart was wrenching instead, twisting painfully, because that wasn't how it was supposed to be. Not at all.

"Goddess help me, I have looked, yes, but all I could see was how not like you the other jalil were, how bland and alike. - he continued quietly - You are different and bold and impossible to overlook and... I thought I was supposed to like the same kind of jalil that my mother likes, but I don't. Not anymore. I like you. Only you. I promise. Please, mistress..." he said, cautiously lowering his arms as if he expected more blows, but his expression was raw and unguarded, and he looked at her with fear and hope and need and it was all true.

Tay's eyes were stinging and her throat had knotted, making her almost unable to speak. She felt like an asshole, a total, utter asshole for having treated him like that, for hitting him and calling him a liar just because he was saying things she wasn't used to hear, for letting her fears and doubts ruin everything.  
She, grabbed his wrists and parted his hands, then leaned in towards him and placed a gentle kiss on his lips.  
"I am sorry." she said, even though she knew that the rule number one of the game was to never admit any kind of fault to a jaluk.   
He wasn't any jaluk though, and she had hurt him even though he had given himself up to her. She had always thought that she wasn't that kind of jalil, the kind that hurt and humiliated jaluki for no reason at all. She wished she could take everything back, erase everything and go back to when everything was fine and they were just having fun.

"I am sorry. - she repeated - I messed up, alright? You did nothing wrong." she added with another soft kiss and he responded, pressing back gently and relaxing against the backrest.  
"Why...? Why did you think I was lying?" he asked in a rough whisper, leaning his forehead against hers.  
"Because... because it was, I don't know, too good to be true? - Tay replied with a bitter little laugh - I thought it was an act. I mean, it would have been alright if you'd been here just because you can fuck. You wouldn't have needed to pretend I'm beautiful. I am not a pretty jalil, I know it." she added.  
"Who said that?" Jeggred asked.  
Tay shrugged. "It's common knowledge." she replied, pretending that it didn't hurt.  
"Then I'm glad I am famously ignorant, because I still like you better than I like anyone else. - Jeggred insisted - I try not to, but I end up liking everything about you." he added, pressing a kiss to the corner of her lips and Tay suddenly wanted to cry, because, damn, he had no right to be so sweet after she had treated him like shit.

"I like how strong you are. I like how your hands are calloused and scarred, like a warrior's." he continued, taking one of her hands in one of his smaller ones and raising it to his lips. He hesitated, looking at her with a question in his eyes. Tay looked back and nodded minutely, feeling almost shy. He placed a kiss on her knuckles, then turned her hand over and placed another on her palm before letting her hand go and Tay felt a tingle spread all over her, slowly warming her up.

"You say the oddest things, Jay..." she whispered, and kissed him again, still gently, still apologetically, but he parted his lips for her, letting her in and it became almost instantly more, not quite as bruising and dirty like some of the others they had shared, but warm and sweet and passionate. Her hands tangled into his hair and his came to rest on her hips and she shifted on the sofa and straddled him, pressing herself against him, front to front, as much as she could, and they kissed, and kissed, until they were out of breath and still held each other close even afterwards.  
Maybe it was already too intimate and personal to be still casual, but Tay didn't care. Not when it felt so nice.

"I can keep on saying them, if you want, if they make you happy." Jeggred whispered, rubbing his cheek against hers.  
"They do." Tay admitted quietly, petting his mane. She bent her head and started nuzzling against his jaw and neck. It wasn't really sexual, just pleasant and comforting to bask in his warmth and scent, in his presence, strong and solid under her.

"I like to touch you. Your skin is so smooth and soft and cool." he said, sliding his hands up her back in a slightly ticklish caress.  
"I'm not cold." Tay grumbled between depositing kisses on his pulse.  
"You are colder than me. - he retorted - But I like it, it's... soothing." he added, tilting his head to give her better access. His smaller hands were hovering awkwardly on her upper back, clearly wanting to be somewhere else.  
"You can touch my hair, if you want." she said.  
Jeggred sighed and promptly obeyed, starting to run his fingers through her hair, exploring the longish top, sans gel for once, and the prickly stubble on the shaved sides with careful, attentive touches, sighing contentedly as he let her pink-tinted strands slide through his fingers.  
"I guess you like to touch my hair too." Tay teased him.  
"I like to touch you everywhere. - he retorted - You feel good." he said, and his breath hitched when she nipped him playfully.  
"And you taste good." Tay said, lifting her head to look at him.  
"You do too. - he replied with a grin - I loved it, last time... to kiss you down there." he added, waving a hand vaguely downwards and flushing in embarrassment. It was funny and endearing how he would do anything she asked, but then would be unable to speak of it without getting all tongue-tied.

"Do you want to do it again?" she asked.  
"Yes. Of course. - he replied eagerly - If we just swap places, I..." he started, but Tay placed a finger on his lips and he quieted immediately.  
"Not now. Maybe later. - she said - If I remember correctly, I was supposed to fuck you until you begged me to let you come..." she whispered and his eyes darkened immediately.  
"Is that still a good plan?" she asked.  
"A wonderful plan." he replied hoarsely.  
"Then sit back and let me do my bit." she instructed.

She placed her hands on his shoulders and slowly slid them down his torso, mapping all the ridges and dips of muscle and bone with her fingers, exploring all the pieces of him that shouldn't really have belonged together, but that blended into a terrible and beautiful whole nonetheless, and he shivered in delight under her touch, gasping for air already, even though she had not even gone close to his dick.

Abstractly, she could understand why that perfectly balanced blend of smooth drow beauty and demonic savagery, could be seen by other drow as horrible, as a disgusting perversion of their own fair form, but for Tay that thought just didn't click. What she saw was strength and fury and grace, the grace of a lethal predator, of a warrior who honed his body like a weapon, and need, the terrible, raw need of someone starved of touch and pleasure.  
She looked up at his face, flushed and slack in exstasy and she felt a rush of pleasure and joy fill her and warm her from the inside out.

"Oh, mistress... this is..." he managed to say, looking at her with soft awe.  
"Do you like it?" she asked. She let her hands slide lower, tracing the line of hair that run from his navel to his groin.   
"Yes... I... oh, Tay... how can you look at me like this?" he asked, tossing his head.  
"Like what?" she retorted. Her hands slid even lower, brushing the base of his cock and she looked at him, delighting in the way he squirmed and twitched for her.  
"Like... like I'm handsome." he managed to gasp.  
"Because that's how I see you. - Tay explained - There isn't only one kind of beauty, and at any rate, I am officially weird. Is that enough for you?" she challenged. She pulled on  his hair again, forcing him to bare his neck for her, and bit him hard, tearing a small yelp from him.  
"Enough?!" he repeated, a hint of laughter in his voice.  
"It's more than enough. It's all I never even dared to dream about." he whispered.  
She didn't know what to say, so  closed her hand around his dick with a firm grip and started sliding it up and down his length, fucking him hard and fast, like she was desperate to see him come and couldn't wait for it.  
Downstairs the party had picked up its pace and now the band on stage was playing some loud, brash "drunken spider" music. People would be dancing frantically, shaking and jumping about in the grip of the entrancing, hypnotic rythm.   
Ordinarily, Tay would be in the thick of the crowd, dancing the party away, but now she didn't feel like she was missing out.  
She was having her own private performance, and it was a sure prize-winner.

Jeggred's head was thrown back in ecstasy, and she could tell he was close already from the way his cock twitched and throbbed in her hands and  from the harsh sound of his breaths, but he was resisting his own pleasure for her, to prolong their game and please her.  
She loved the tension in his body, the way all his hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists and the almost pained grimace on his face. He was biting his lips bloody in the effort to hold on.

A trickle of thick, dark blood made its way from the corner of his lips to his chin. Tay leaned into him and lapped it up with a broad sweep of her tongue, then captured his torn lips with her own.   
He tasted like copper and sulphur and pleasure. He tasted wonderful and she swallowed his helpless little moans greedily, fighting against her own body, which clamoured for her to impale herself on his huge, straining cock and ride him to oblivion.   
"You have time..." she told herself. She didn't know when it was going to happen again, she'd better make the most of it, and to do that, she had to be in control of the situation.

Her grip on him tightened reflexively, maybe a tiny bit too hard for a normal jaluk, but Jeggred was anything but normal. The sound he made surely wasn't of pain and his reaction... He arched hard and broke the kiss, gasping for air.  
"I'm close... - he warned obediently - so close... oh, Goddess... please!"  
Tay was tempted by the idea of continuing heedlessly and force him to resist or fail, but she wasn't the kind of person who rigs a game so that it is impossible to win, so she stilled her hand and relaxed her grip, giving him a bit of respite. She watched him as he tried to pull back from the edge, feeling herself get wetter by the second as he panted and trembled, overwhelmed by what she had done to him.

She watched him closely and as soon as it seemed to her that he was backing away from the edge, she resumed her demanding caresses, pushing him back towards it, over and over, while begged her and lavished on her his extravagant,  sweet, sincere praise, until even his valent effort were not enough.  
Clear fluid beaded at the tip of his twitching cock and leaked down its length and Tay looked at him as if entranced.  
She had never seen anything so beautiful.

"I am sorry, Mistress... I..." he started but his apologies were cut short by a strangled gasp when Tay bent her head down and lapped him, sweeping her tongue slowly from the base to the tip of his weeping, engorged cock.   
She knew she wasn't supposed to do something like that, that no jalil worth of any self-respect would lower herself to that, but she almost could not help herself. She wanted to taste him.   
She wanted to leave no pleasure unexplored between them, to take all that he had to offer, and to the Abyss with those stupid social conventions! A degrading transfer of power? What a notion!  
He was letting her get close to his sensitive bits and to the large arteries that run close to the surface on either side of them with her rather sharp teeth. If that wasn't a sign of total submission and trust, she didn't know what would qualify, Tay told herself as she looked up at his astonished, delighted face and then deliberately lowered her head again, her tongue darting out towards the swollen head of his member.  
Jeggred tensed up, taut as a lute string, a choked sound of pleasure gurgling from his lips, and she took as a sign of encouragement. A drop of pre-come had beaded at the very tip and she judiciously lapped it up like the rest then teased the slit with the tip of her tongue, making him shudder.

"Mistress... why...?" he hissed.  
"You did it to me, I do it to you. It seems only fair, doesn't it?" Tay replied with a nonchalant shrug.  
"And you like it, don't you?" she added, doing it again.  
"Oh... I... too much!" he gasped.  
Tay smiled to herself and bent her head down once more, only this time she parted her lips as she sank and took the whole tip of him in her mouth. It was hot against her tongue and salty, soft skin and hardness underneath, and it felt good and she tried to slide her lips further down to take as much of him as she could...  
"N-No! - he gasped, his fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of her neck to prevent her from doing so - T-Too much! I can't! Please!"

Tay withdrew immediately, confused and slightly alarmed by his vehement refusal.  
"Hey, calm down. What's wrong?" she asked.  
"Too much... - he repeated - Too close. I can't... I can't not come..." he sobbed.  
"Uh... alright. I mean, it's not a problem. You can come, I will let you." Tay replied. Her hand moved towards the fastenings of his bonds, but he caught it in one of his and stopped her again.  
"Like this...? - he asked, breathless - You would let me... do it like this?"  
He sounded and looked astonished, but also excited by the idea.  
"Why not? - Tay replied - You are mine. I can do everything I want with you, don't you think? Anything you consent to." she added, rising again to whisper the last words in his ear.  
Contrary to her expectations, Jeggred hesitated. He took a breath to speak,  but remained silent and just looked at her long and hard, his expression steeling into resolve.  
"I don't want to come before you do." he said.  
"Hey, it's not a test. I really don't mind if you do. I like it when you come." Tay tried to reassure him.  
"I know... you are so good to me. - Jeggred replied, looking into her eyes with an open, pleading gaze - I just... I just want to make you happy, Mistress..." he added.

Tay opened her mouth to tell him that he didn't need to deprive himself to make her happy, that she didn't want him to perform for her enjoyment but to enjoy himself with her, but ultimately decided to shut up. She didn't have the time or the will to engage with him in a discussion about gender roles, this time, so it would be best to just play along.  
"Alright.  - she capitulated - What do we do, then?"  
"I need a bit of time to pull back before we can... uh... resume. - Jeggred announced quietly - But in the meantime I could please you, if you want..." he added, subconsciously licking his lips as he looked away.  
Tay erupted in a brief bout of laughter.  
"Dear Goddess... You are really desperate to do it, aren't you?" she commented, amused but also excited by the perspective.  
Jeggred made a small, whiny noise and flushed hard but nodded nonetheless. "I am... Can you blame me? You feel so good..." he confessed.  
"I'm not complaining.  - she joked, sliding off him and quickly getting rid of her underwear, which somehow she had forgotten and swapping places with him on the couch - I am definitely not complaining. Now do your worst, pretty boy." she challenged, spreading her legs, as an invitation him.  
Jeggred knelt gingerly between them, letting out another keening, needy noise and immediately bent to his task.   
If his first exploit had been beginner's luck, it seemed to be holding, Tay thought distantly, already losing herself to the pleasure he was giving her.

He cupped her hips with his larger hands, holding her gently, almost reverently, as if she was something precious and priceless, and fucked her with his mouth and fingers, whimpering and moaning under his breath all the way, as if he was the one being pleasured, as if he had been hungry, starving for her.  
She felt wanted and beautiful and sexy. She felt desired and somehow it made it all even better than it usually was.

Her legs hooked over his shoulders, Tay scrabbled for a hold on the couch to ground herself. From her lips spilled a torrent of moans and encouragement. She never wanted him to stop, ever again, but her climax was rushing closer and closer and it was so beautiful and still not enough and somehow she found herself holding a handful of his hair, pushing his face into her cunt demandingly. She balked for a moment. She didn't want to do that, she thought, and loosened her hold, but Jeggred made another needy, excited noise and somehow snatched her hand mid-air, pressing it back against his head.  
"Please, Mistress. Help me fuck you..." he rasped, momentarily looking up at her.  
Tay met his smouldering gaze shivering a little from the intensity of it and nodded. When he bent down to kiss her once more, Tay didn't hold back. She pushed his face against her and bucked her hips in ecstasy as he gave her all the pleasure he could manage, and this time she didn't stop and that shining horizon she had been running towards became closer and closer, until suddenly it crashed upon her, toe-curling, muscle-clenching, mind-blowing, leaving her too breathless to even cry out, and Jeggred continued diligently to kiss her, bringing her pleasure to incredible, almost unbearable heights, and stretching it out so that one orgasm blended into the next and she felt as if she couldn't stop coming, and in other circumstances she would have been ashamed of the helpless sounds she was making, of the incoherent pleas for more that she couldn't quite contain, but it was perfect, so perfect...

"Oh, Tay..." Jeggred whispered a while later, smoothing his hands along her tighs soothingly as she lay on the couch, basking in the afterglow.  
"You feel so amazing... I nearly came too, you know? Just from feeling you come..." he added in a sort of purr. There was a slight tremor in his hands and a slight catch to his voice and his gaze has a sort of desperate weight to it.  
"Nearly is not nearly enough, isn't it?" Tay whispered back.  
"No." Jeggred admitted.  
"Do you want to come, now?" she asked.   
"I need it." he rasped.   
"Perfect. - Tay commented with a lazy smile - Let's swap places again then, shall we?" she proposed, tapping her hand against the sofa.  
"A-re you going to... ride me?" he asked, his voice catching mid-sentence.  
"To oblivion and beyond." Tay confirmed with a wink and a grin.  
Jeggred picked her up from the couch as if she weighed nothing and sat down in her place, lowering her once more so that she was straddling his hips. Her core was pressed against his cock and she could feel it pulse in time with his heartbeat.  
She rose on her knees and sneaked a hand between their bodies, taking it in her hand to line herself up.  
"Please..." he whimpered and she couldn't help but oblige, slowly sinking over his length.  
It wasn't just that she loved to tease him (she totally did though), it was a necessity, given how bloody huge (thick, long, perfect) his cock was. Even though she was all drenched and loose from what he had done to her, it was still a tight fit and she could feel herself stretching even further as she took him in, and she was still so sensitive from before that it sent sparks of pleasure coursing through all of her, as if she was on the verge of coming all over again.

"Oh, Goddess... so warm, so tight... - Jeggred growled - I can feel you so much... I don't know how long I can resist you." he added.  
Tay could barely answer him: she had managed to sink to the hilt over him and now she felt so fucking full of him that she thought she might burst.  
He shifted his hips and she yelped in almost-pain.  
"Don't! - she yelled - Don't move, for fuck's sake! You feel too fucking big like this... I..." she explained, only partially coherent.  
"Do you... do you want us to stop?" he asked quietly, dejection clear in his voice and in the way his shoulders slumped.  
"No, I just need time... just a bit..." she replied between gritted teeth.  
"Ah... yes, of course... all the time you need. - he panted - I'll hold on for you." he promised, even though he was trembling with the need for more.

She laid her head on his shoulder and just breathed for a moment, letting her body adjust around him and when that overwhelming feeling subsided a bit, the almost-pain turned into bone-melting pleasure. She shifted her hips gingerly, sitting back so she could leverage herself on her knees and started to move and those little sparks started again, making her clench around him and falter.  
"Tay! - he exclaimed, his larger hands coming to rest on her hips, as if to guide her - What are you...?"  
"I am close again. - she whimpered - Help me fuck you." she said and his eyes went wide and his mouth went slack, but he nodded and his hands tightened reflexively on her hips.  
When she started moving again, he followed her lead, lifting and dropping her on her cock, and bucking into her as she moved, harder and faster and desperate, and she felt herself inching closer to her climax once more, her inner muscles fluttering her toes starting to curl...

"Gonna come!" she warned.  
"Yes! Yes! Please, let me come with you!" Jeggred begged, shameless as ever.  
"Ohhh... yes, come for me! _Eesha_!" she gasped and his bindings popped open with that last word of power, releasing him, and she was coming hard all over his cock with a triumphant cry, her vision filled with bursts of faerie fire, purple and silver and bright pink, and he buried himself balls deep into her and she could feel him tense up like a crossbow string just before the bolt is let loose... and then he was coming too, spilling his seed into her in burning hot spurts as he roared her name, and it felt so fucking glorious that she didn't even have the words to describe it.

 

"I am sorry that I didn't manage to finish what I had started earlier..." she said much later, as they lay curled on the couch in a contented daze.  
"What if we try again next time?" she added, placing a kiss at the corner of his lips.  
"Yeah, next time..." Jeggred repeated with a sigh. Strangely he didn't sound too enthusiastic.  
"Do you want there to be a next time, or did you have your fill of weird?"  she asked, turning his earlier words against him.  
"I do, Tay, I want it very much. I don't think I could ever get tired of you." he replied, placing his smaller hands on her cheeks and looking into her eyes.  
"Then what..." she started to ask, then it dawned on her why she had never interacted with him before, why he had never been at any party or social gathering or anywhere, really. His family didn't usually allow him out of the compound, and it had a matter of been bare luck and desobedience that they had even managed to get two opportunities to be together.

  
"Oh... So this is it?" she commented, and she didn't even know why her voice sounded so sad and her eyes were stinging. It was just casual sex, she reminded herself once more, not even she believed it anymore.  
"It don't want it to be. - Jeggred replied - I will try to make sure that it is not." he promised.  
"But how?" Tay retorted.  
"I don't know. I will beg my family to let me have a job outside of the compound, or I'll sneak out again. - he replied with a shrug - I will find a way, but I do not know how long it may take and I don't know if you're willing to wait for me."  
"I am. - Tay blurted out before her mind could interfere and she got any sense back into her - I work at a tattoo shop at the Market every afternoon, and I have my own place in one of the alleys close by. You will find me there, when you are ready." she instructed, blushing furiously because she had never thought she would be the kind of person to have the kind of relationship that called for secret meetings and promises, but there she was, and in the heat of the moment, as Jeggred showed her his gratitude by kissing the breath out of her, it didn't even feel that wrong.  
It felt good instead, like a warmth inside, like the anticipation of happiness and pleasure.


	3. The Wait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: language and self-esteem issues, masturbation, plus the usual drow bullying and backstabbiness and parenting done slightly, even if for the best reasons.  
> There is very little porn in this chapter, but a lot of introspection and character building.  
> Triel Baenre is actually not such a bad mother.

It took him four tendays to get another chance to sneak out.

Four fucking tendays, forty fucking cycles of Narbondel. He had counted them off one by one, thinking he would go crazy.

 

He had never been in such a state before.

When he was discharging his duties or training it wasn't too bad, actually, but once he was in a situation in which he did not have much to do, or was on his own during his rare breaks, or during the wee hours of the Wane before he went to sleep, Tay was all he could think of.

 

He had never though that one could need something so much that the lack of it felt like pain, but there he was, clinging to the memories of their two encounters to withstand the loneliness of long nights, and daring to hope that she had spoken the truth when she said that she would wait. 

 

It wasn't like he was jealous or anything: he had never even imagined that she would wait for him as in that she would not do anyone else in the meantime.

Jalili would be jalili, and he knew very well he wasn't and likely would never be in a position to negotiate for exclusivity, he just hoped that she didn't realise that he wasn't worth waiting for in the meantime, because some days the perspective of meeting her again and being with her again, of being allowed all that happiness again, was the only thing that got him through the day, through the insults and slights, through the criticisms and the mockery, through the humiliations, through the feeling that no matter how hard he tried he would never be good enough to be treated as the other jaluki of the family by his relatives and even by his mother.

 

Depending of who you asked, he was a child who would never really grow up and needed constant supervision, an exotic pet, a glorified slave, a weapon, a freakish, awkward idiot, or a sacred beast, born to carry out the Goddess' will, but never a person with ideas and wishes of his own. Only Tay treated him like he had a say on what concerned him, like he was free to choose and say no. Only she treated him like he was enough, like he mattered.

 

Not even his mother was able to do that, not all the time. Being her bodyguard and most trusted servant shielded him from a lot of the worst that her relatives might concoct, but she did nothing against the minor things that accumulated like corrosive dust, eroding his sense of self-worth, she never validated him. Sometimes she just told him to suck it up, because he really was beastly, brutish and not drow enough and he needed to learn his station in life before someone else taught him a much harsher lesson.

 

Jeggred understood that she was in a precarious enough political position with so many sisters vying with her place at the top that she couldn't really go against social conventions and uplift him, but sometimes he had the impression that even in their most private moments she cherished him even though he was a freak only because he belonged to her and was an asset for her, like one would cherish a favourite weapon, or a prized lizardmount, not because she thought he was really worth loving as a person.

 

But he wasn't unlovable. He wasn't worthless. He had been enough for Tay to seek him out, enough for kisses and pleasure, enought to be called handsome, enough for her to wait for him. With her he had felt like a real person for the first time in his life, and that got him thinking... which in itself should be a miracle, according to some of his nastiest relatives, even though it wasn't true.

 

He thought a lot about a lot of things: the relative placement of people and exits in a room, the safety features of said room, the shortest way out from places, the quickest way to kill a bunch of people in a room and get his mother to safety, and so on. He took his job very seriously and, no matter what they said, it wasn't like you could perform it just by sheer brute force and wishful thinking. It took risk awareness and careful planning, as well as a healthy dose of imagination. Sometimes during some boring, low-risk meetings, he would just space out and go over different scenarios in his head, trying to solve them. What would happen if a warband of duergar burst through the doors? And what if the renegade Drizzt appeared with his gang if surface-dwellers? What would he do? What would he tell other people to do?

 

He had overheard Andzerel the Weapons Master of House Baenre as he was teaching his cousins this technique and it had been his private solace ever since.

He probably wasn't any good at it, and all of his plans were completely unrealistic in the sense that they relied on the fact that people would listen to him and do what he said, which would happen on the same day in which the sun staryed shining in the Underdark, but at least it was better than constantly fantasizing about killing those who had slighted him, or, a recent favourite, about Tay and the things they would do together once they were reunited.

 

The latter tended to have emarassingly visible effects, while the former just made him terribly angry all the time. He didn't mind being even very angry some of the time, and it wasn't like keeping calm was easy for him with being half-demon and all that it came with, but constant, intense anger was tiresome and would not gain him any consideration from his relatives, who were all to keen on receiving confirmations of what they already believed to be the truth.

 

And therein lie the crux of the matter, he had realised: maybe the problem didn't really lie in him, but in them and in their inability or unwillingness to look beyond his defects and shortcomings and see what he was really like, what he could be capable of if they let him try.

He could do much more for his House than just looking scary next to his mother or breaking prisoners in the dungeon, and if until then he had just forced himself to be content with his lot and expect nothing more from life, now he wanted more. He wanted to be the best that he could in the way that he was. He still had to figure out what that meant, exactly, but he was sure it included being allowed out of the compound in his free time, like the others were, so that he could meet Tay.

 

Accomplishing that task had not been easy and required a large amount of patience and dedication. The key to his strategy was his mother and the fact that she could be persuaded to grant him boons, every now and again, when she was especially pleased, so he strove to do exactly everything she asked him to her exact specifications and to "behave himself" as much as he could in front of the rest of the family, even if that meant taking all sorts of insults without a flinch and keeping quiet as much as he could even when what he really, really wanted was to yell at someone in frustration.

 

And then there was the prisoner, some idiot jaluk who had tried to double-cross House Baenre on some commercial deal or other.

His mother wanted to give him a lingering, excruciatingly painful death, but she didn't have the time to attend to it herself, so she offloaded the task onto him, instructing him to take it slow and be thorough.

For some reason she had assumed that his passion for fighting and killing things translated also into a fondness for torturing them. It wasn't so, but he had never dared to tell her, since she liked it so much instead. He didn't mind hurting people for her, but there were only so many things you could break in a sentient before they died or totally lost it, and after a while the screams and the pleas got on his nerves and he just wanted to finish them off and get rid of them.

What his mother didn't understand was that he didn't like to fight just because he liked to hurt people. He liked it because it was a challenge, because people fought back and  would try to hurt him back and would manage if he didn't take them seriously enough. He liked it because of the edge, of the uncertainty.

 

There was no uncertainty in what his mother asked him to do, instead. Those people would die without fail. The only thing that changed was how long it would it take for them to do so. He kind of didn't see the point, not like his mother did, but this time he would put his distaste for those things aside and do her proud, he had told himself.

The prisoner took an inordinately long amount of time to die and his mother seemed pleased with his patience, creativity and restraint. Eventually, when his mother was finally satisfied of the punishment, Jeggred scraped the jaluk's sorry remains in the waste pit and prepared himself to wait. 

 

In a couple of days, as he had anticipated, his mother summoned him to her private chambers, like she sometimes did when she had something important to tell him.

"Next tenday it's going to be your nameday." she announced.

Jeggred quirked an eyebrow and looked a question at her from where he was kneeling in front of her seat. She was so short that he barely had to look up.

"Yes, really. - his mother replied - You are turning eleven." she revealed, much to his surprise.

Jeggred had no real idea of how old he was. He had never kept count and his mother hadn't been consistent in reminding him. He knew he had grown up faster than any drow, and that he was way younger than the cousins he was often compared to, but this was... kind of ridiculous. Boys of eleven were barely let out of the nursery and one needed to be over thirty at least to graduate from Melee Magthere.

 

"Wow... I didn't realise I was so young." he whispered, putting a brave face on it, even though the clearest thought that entered his mind was the worry about whether Tay would be put off by how young he technically was if she knew.

"You are not as young as you would be if you were a full-blooded drow. Your species ages differently." she retorted dryly.

Jeggred limited himself to a nod, waiting for the rest to come.

 

"It occurred to me that I haven't given you a present in a while, and since you've been such a good boy recently, I think you deserve one." she declared, threading her fingers through his hair in an affectionate caress.

The purring sound of gratitude and contentedness he let out had nothing contrived about it. He really loved when people he trusted and liked pet his hair. He could stay like that for hours without ever getting bored.

"So, what do you want?" she asked and Jeggred could barely contain a small sound of jubilation. His plan had taken longer then he had wished for, but had finally come to fruition. And now for the most difficult part, he told himself.

"I... I don't know, really. You already give me everything I could wish for, mother." he replied softly, rubbing his face against her legs in what was their private display of affection.

"Ah, don't even try! - she chided him affectionately - There must be something you want."

Jeggred pretended to hesitate again, trying to gauge how much acting would be too much, and finally said :"Well, there is one thing, but I don't know if I should..."

"Say it. You have earned your prize." she encouraged him, acting generous.

"I want to go to the Bazaar." he blurted out and waited, knowing that the longer she refrained from saying "No" the higher chances he got of actually making it.

"This is no small request, and not one without consequences, son." she said finally, taking her hand off his hair.

"I know, mother. I am sorry if I have spoken out of turn." he apologised, kowtowing at her feet. It didn't sound good.

"Why did you ask something like this? What do you think you will get from out there that House Baenre cannot give you?" she asked, her voice suddenly harsh, but thankfully Jeggred was prepared for this.

"The sights. The sounds. The smells. The hustle and bustle of people. Fungus milkshakes from the corner shack, which apparently are to die for. Perspective." he enumerated and that seemed to give her pause so he dared to raise his eyes from the ground and continued.

"How long has it been since you declared me an adult?" he asked.

"Four years." she replied without inflection, keeping him under a steady gaze.

"And how long since I started serving you, since the first time I fought and killed for you?" he insisted.

"Seven. It has been seven years already. - she replied, a find smile on her face - You were barely taller than me, back then. You've grown so fast... It seems yesterday when you were little enough for me to carry you in my arms." she reminesced and this time he could really imagine that she loved him, really loved him, just because of himself. He felt slightly bad about deceiving her like that now, but he pushed through that feeling. It wasn't just about Tay, it was about the fact that he had realised that he needed more than what he was being offered and like any good drow he wasn't going to let the chance to take it pass him by.

 

"Seven years. - he repeated - I have never been out on my own in all this time." he lied.

His mother considered his words in silence, so he continued. 

"Even boys still studying at the Academy go to the Bazaar. - he said - Even retainers have time to go there for their own enjoyment. Even non-drow _iblith_ roam its alleys, and I only know it from what others have told me. I have never seen it for myself. But I want to. I need to."

"You need to? Why would you?" she asked, but her voice and her eyes were soft, not as if she was angry with him.

"Because am ignorant and I want to know. I want to know everything I can in the time that I have left." he replied, but his mother seemed only perplexed by his answer.

"I age faster than any drow, mother. - he explained - And not just faster. Nearly tree times as fast. And even if I aged normally, I am your bodyguard, I am supposed to be ready to put myself between you and danger, to lay down my life for you, and you have many enemies, mother." he continued, much more emotionally involved than he had imagined he would be.

She was listening and he found himself talking and talking, and going much deeper than he had intended to, uncovering thoughts and feelings he had not even fully admitted to himself yet.

"And I am not telling you this because I don't want to do this anymore. - he added almost immediately - I know that you had me just because you needed someone to fight for you, that this is the only reason I am even alive, and I am grateful. I am happy to be alive and I like protecting you. I would do it even if it weren't the practical reason for my existence, because you're my mother and I love you... I would rather die than let someone hurt you, and even though I am strong and I try to do my best, one day or other it might really get to that. I would do it gladly, but it got me thinking: how much time do I have left before it happens? How many things I will miss out on because I am not drow enough? How many will be forever just out of my reach?" he continued.  


He could almost imagine them all parading in front of him, and his heart ached, clenching in his chest like a fist, at the thought that he would never be able to even experience them briefly, and for a moment he grieved for them.

 

"You're right, my little one. - his mother said in a soft, soft voice - And you're wrong too." she added and Jeggred looked a question at her. In what way was he wrong this time?

"I didn't have you because I needed a weapon. I had you because I wanted a child, because I wanted you. - she continued, tears pooling in her red eyes - I don't like jaluki at all and I was never interested in motherhood, until suddenly I was and the thought of being childless was unbearable, but at that stage I was already old and a Matron Mother." she narrated.  


"I was a Matron Mother with too many enemies and precious few allies, one which is seen as weak and unable to fill her famed mother's shoes, one which is balancing on a knife's edge to jeep her position. - she continued, bitterness seeping into her voice - I couldn't afford to tie myself to a jaluk, not even briefly, lest he try to use his position to vie for favour and undermine mine, and I could not face the possibility that someone would try to use my vulnerable child against me, to harm her to wound me. I didn't know what to do, until the Goddess sent me an inspiration during the last Graduation of Arach Tinilit I attended before resigning as Headmistress." she revealed.

"It has to do with a ritual with a demon, right?" Jeggred intervened.

"Exactly. There would have been no need to deal with a father, as the demon would go back to the Abyss straight afterwards, and my child would have been stronger than a drow child, would have grown faster and would have been less of an easy target." she explained and it actually made a lot of sense.

"You put a lot of thought in this matter, mother." he said with a sense of wonder. It felt strange to know that someone had thought so much about him before he was even born.

"It was very important for me and I wanted for everything to be perfect." she said, nodding to herself.

"But I am not... I mean... perfect? Like, not at all?" he protested, shaking his head.

"You are what you are, little one, and I knew in advance what you were going to be. I researched a lot. You didn't happen by mistake. I chose you." she declared, and Jeggred felt both elated and confused by her words.

"Draegloths are also much more likely to be boys and I didn't want a girl with the implicit perspective that one day she would try to kill me to take my place. I wanted a little boy whom I could always trust, whom I could care for without holding back. - she added almost shyly, looking down at her hands, abandoned on her lap - And when you were finally born you were so perfect... so fuzzy and soft and beautiful... my little murderous kitten." she reminesced, her gaze lost somewhere in the distance as if there was something there only she could see. Jeggred looked away, embarrassed. He could get fuzzy, he was quite furry in places, much to his chagrin, but soft? And beautiful?  


  
" Really?" he thought with a grimace.   


"Yes, you were beautiful. - she repeated - You were everything I wished for and I couldn't bear to be parted from you for even a minute. I carried you everywhere with me and didn't ever leave you in anyone else's care. I told them that it was because I wanted to make sure your loyalty was undivided, but the reality was that I didn't want to miss a single moment of your life and I couldn't bear the thought of someone hurting you when I couldn't protect you."she revealed.

" So this is why I kept me as your personal guard..." he whispered, almost dumbfounded by the sudden change in perspective of his whole world.

"So that we could always protect each other." she acquiesced and Jeggred couldn't really help the whining sound he made and the way he threw himself at his mother, embracing her with all four of his arms.

 

It wasn't just hard for him to control his anger, all feelings were too intense and overwhelming  for him, so that when he hated it was with the full strength of his fury and when he loved, it was with all his heart.

"I love you mother. I love you so much..." he purred contentedly and she hugged him back, holding him as tight as she could.

"And I love you too, my little one. Everything I've done, I've done it to protect you. - she whispered - If I was cold, it was to make you less of a target, if I was harsh, it was to spare you from worse abuse from others, if I kept you cooped in here, it was to keep you safe. I was so worried with this and everything else that I didn't realise I was harming you." she continued, placing kisses on his head and Jeggred nearly melted in a boneless heap of happiness.

When he had envisioned this encounter it had always been more like an aggressive negotiation or even a fight than something like this. There was a time, when he was still a child, when his mother would do something like this every few days, showering him with love and caresses, it used to be their secret, but it had been literally years since his mother had last allowed him some cuddling. He hadn't ever realised how much he had missed it.

 

"I have been pandering to other people's prejudices for too long because I was afraid of their opinion and I was selfish. I thought that if you knew nothing else but this life at my side, you would never want to leave me.  \- she confessed, almost in tears - I don't care if you are not fully drow. You are enough for me. You are perfect just as you are. Boys like you have become Weapons Masters, House Wizards and Patrons. A girl even became Matron Mother, though briefly. You can do everything other people can. It's just going to be harder." she added  


"I will find a way, mother. I will learn. I will not let you down." he promised.

His heart felt so full it was almost hurting and tears welled into his eyes, wetting the velvety fabric of his mother's black gown.

"Of course you will. - she said, a hint of steel seeping back into her voice - And I trust you will not break the Peace of Lolth at the Bazaar. House Baenre needs to set a good example in these matters." she added, ever more stern, but Jeggred barely noticed the change in her tone.

"Am I actually allowed to go, then?!" he exclaimed, grinning madly.

"You are. - she conceded - On your nameday for starters, and then we'll see if you behave. We can make this a regular occurrence, perhaps." she anticipated, giving him a hard look, but he chose again to ignore the implicit threat and focus on the opportunity she was giving him.

"Thank you, mother. You will not regret it." he promised.

 

News travelled fast in the Baenre compound and soon everybody seemed to know that he was going to be allowed out. While some dared to openly criticize the Matron Mother Triel Baenre, most kept their reactions to a lower profile.

Some of his cousins had put together a betting pool about how many people he would maim or kill on his first outing, while other members of the family just limited themselves to teasing him about his ignorance and lack of manners which supposedly would bring shame on the whole House and thankfully bring the whole experiment to an end.

Jeggred endured, constructing ever more complicated war scenarios in his head to drown their pesky voices. He wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of losing it in front of them and validating all their prejudices.

 

Much to his surprise, some people were actually supportive, probably because they thought that if he was going to start taking active part in the Family's activities it would be better to have him as an ally than as an enemy. It felt nice.

 

"I heard you're going to the Bazaar." someone said to him the day before the Big Day, as he was strolling down a corridor towards his room after a training session with the House Warriors.

Jeggred looked down. It was just a kid, maybe a First Year student, tall and broad for his age. He was built like a fighter, but his robes denoted an Apprentice of Sorcere, one of Uncle Gromph's wizardlings.

"Maybe I am, but who in the Abyss are you?"he asked, crossing his upper arms on his chest and staring him down.

"I am Prath, one of your cousins." the kid replied.

"One of Aunt Sos'Umptu's?" Jeggred asked, frowning as he tried to remember who was whose get.

"Eh, I wish. - Prath replied, shuffling his feet in embarrassment - One of Cousin Waerva's. No one important." he added with a forced smile.

Waerva was one of the garden variety priestesses of the House, and not a particularly bright or ambitious one either, no one important indeed.

 

"Alright, cousin, so what do you care about where I am going?" Jeggred prompted. He should be cleaning himself up and joining his mother for a meeting, but he had time to spare and he wasn't going to waste the rare opportunity of having an actual conversation.

He just hoped the kid didn't want to join him in his outing or his assignment with Tay would be put at risk.

"Because you've never been there and I just wanted to give you some tips." Prath replied calmly.

"Very generous... what's in it for you?" Jeggred retorted, quirking an eyebrow in what he hoped was a sceptic expression.

"Those assholes are betting that you would make a mess of things and I don't like it. Going to the Bazaar shouldn't be a big deal for a Baenre." the kid explained.

"It's not going to be." Jeggred declared, huffing and standing straighter.

"Well, it could. - Prath had the gall to object - I... I have read about you." he revealed.

"About me?!" Jeggred exclaimed, immediately losing his composure and pointing a finger at his own chest.

"Not you specifically, no. About your kind. - Prath replied with a small grin as he shook his head - There was a book about half-demons abandoned on a table in the reading room when I was sent to clean it. I read it."

"And what did it say?" Jeggred prodded, caught between curiosity and dread.

"Well, that you folks have enhanced senses and less control over your feelings.

That you get bored fast and overwhelmed even faster. Things like that." he replied, shrugging slightly.

"True enough. So what?" Jeggred challenged him.

"So the Bazaar is overwhelming for normal drow. There are so many smells and sounds and colours... And people. Crowds." Prath explained.

"Fuck..."Jeggred thought to himself, feeling his hackles rise spontaneously at the perspective.

 

"I guess they're going to give you a pretty wide berth, considering what you did at the Games, but... you know, if you lose it in the middle of a crowd it can get pretty bad pretty soon. For them, mostly, but also for you, in the long run." the little shit added, looking all concerned, and he was right to be.

He could get irritated super-fast if he wasn't careful, and he'd bet that at least some people in a crowd would be fucking stupid enough to try to irritate him.

"Thank you for the heads-up, cousin. - he replied, trying to control his rising irritation - I'll keep it mind." he added and turned back towards his rooms.

"Hey, wait! I haven't finished!" Prath exclaimed.

"Haven't you?" Jeggred sighed, casting him a glance over his shoulder.

"Eh... No, there are still a few things you need to know." the kid replied.

"Look, I really have to go. The Matron Mother is waiting for me." Jeggred explained, sighing again.

"Then when you're done, come and meet me. I'll be on cleaning duty in the alchemy labs for most of the Wane." Prath proposed.

Jegggred turned back towards him and gave him a hard stare.

"If it's some kind of trap, you'll regret it very acutely, alongside your accomplices." he warned.

Prath swallowed and paled but didn't back down. "It's not a trap, I promise. It's important." he insisted.

Jeggred stared at him for a bit longer and turned away without so much as a farewell, stalking down the corridor towards his rooms. 

 

A quick wash and a change of shorts and he was ready for his mother's long, boring meeting with the heads of the different business activities of House Baenre. There was a merchant company, a jewelry, a mining company, a workshop that made and sold magical components, plus a whole lot of collateral activities run by people affliated to the Family, who paid them rent for their shops or stalls and a share of the profits for protection. Jeggred found it useful to know things like these, but when they started to talk numbers, he just switched off. His background in finance  was null and he couldn't even read the reports, so after making sure that everything was as safe as it could be, he let his mind wander, trying to figure out a countermeasure for something he had overheard Andzerel talking about in training earlier that Rise, but Prath's warnings kept on popping into his mind.

There were too many things he didn't know about the Bazaar and unless he had more information he couldn't prepare for his mission as well as he should. That meant that he had to go to the labs and see him even though that would be an ideal setup for a trap.

 

When the meeting was finally over, he swung by his rooms and grabbed his cloak and crossbow.

He didn't really think that over-helpful, inconsequential Prath was going to set him up for a full-blown assassination attempt, but then again he was at the bottom of the food chain and the rest of the Baenre cousins were a bunch of first-rate assholes who would totally bully someone into doing the dirty work for them. He had managed to repeatedly wipe the floor with their asses on the training grounds, and that had got them all butthurt and vindicative. They couldn't stand the idea that, for all their privileges, he was the better jaluk in a battle, and were the sort of jackasses who would put aside their own rivalries to gang up on him and "show him his place", if given half a chance.

 

Most likely they wouldn't straight out kill him, unless there were adults involved and it was all part of a larger plan to destabilise his mother's power base, but they would try to incapacitate him and give him a thorough beating, maybe even to maim him.

He was immune or very resistant to most of the nasty magical stuff they could throw at him, but he needed to be careful, especially if they had enlisted any wizardlings like Cousin Grendan or Cousing Julani or even Cousin Noori, even though the latter usually kept to her own devices and didn't want any part in petty infighting. It was not common  knowledge, but he had to sleep instead of going through the reverie, so he wasn't immune to that sort of trick like normal drow, and paralysis was really hard to shake off and resist. Then, once he was on the ground and incapacitated, anyone could harm him with impunity.

With this in mind, he picked up a magical whistle his mother had given him to alert her if things went pear-shaped and slung it on a string around his neck.

"Better safe than sorry" were words one could live by, while "everything will be fine" were words you'd most likely die by.

 

The alchemy labs were situated in one of the outermost stalagmites of the Baenre compound, so thay when something inevitably blew up, the rest of the structure would be safe. Jeggred stalked down the corridors keeping an eye out for suspicious shapes and movements and an ear out for out-of-place noises, but the coast seemed to be clear. There was some faint light coming from underneath one of the doors, left slightly ajar, and he could hear the faint sounds of someone moving about and shuffling things around.

He waited for a few moments more, then opened the door with a decisive push, making sure that it banged against the back wall so that if someone was hiding behind it they would get slammed in the face.

Prath yelled a curse and nearly dropped the beaker full of Goddess-knew-what he was holding. Apart from him the room seemed completely empty. Jeggred turned and looked out in the still-empty corridor, then closed the door and turned back towards his cousin.

"Did you really have to do that?!" Prath yelled, glaring daggers at him.

"Yes, I did." Jeggred replied, ignoring his angry looks as he surveyed the room again more thoroughly.

 

It was a long rectangular room mostly occupied by big tables with copper or stone tops. A light-board was set up in a corner for lessons and shelves and benches run along most of the surface of the walls, covered with neatly labelled bottles of reagents or arcane tools of different shapes and sizes. There were three doors apart from the one he had used to enter, one of which was clearly the door to a cupboard for more expensive (or more explosive) reagents and tools. Jeggred stalked towards one of the other two and slammed it open as well, revealing another lab almost identical to the first and equally empty.

 

"What the heck are you doing?!" Prath protested.

Jeggred ignored him again and repeated the procedure with the last door, which revealed a privy, and a quite dirty one at that, crusted with bright green residues and other niceties. Jeggred wrinkled his nose and closed the door.

"Security check. - he replied - What in the Abyss do you wizards eat, to shit green?" he commented with a grimace.

 

"That's not shit. Some asshole dumped chemicals in there and made a mess." Prath replied, sighing and rolling his eyes.

"And you have to clean it." Jeggred concluded for him, bending to look underneath the tables.

"Precisely. I wish it were shit, actually. It would be easier to scrub away. - the kid assented - Hey, why don't you can it ?! I haven't hidden any killers in the cupboards!" he added, putting the beaker down with slightly more force than necessary and slamming closed the cupboard that Jeggred had just opened.

 

The draegloth growled a threat, casting the kid an irritated glance but Prath didn't even seem to notice.

"Didn't you fucking read the sign?! - he asked, pointing at the door - It says air-sensyive reagents, you moron. It needs to stay shut or it will explode!" he yelled.

"Like, actually explode?" Jeggred asked, the thought giving him a bit of pause.

"Yeah. And if by any chance we survived, we'd have to deal with the Archmage's wrath for fucking up his labs." the kid retorted, fuming with irritation.

Jeggred cringed instinctively. Uncle Gromph was known to be a vindicative son of catamite even by drow standards.

"I can't read." he confessed eventually.

"Oh. You physically can't?" Prath asked, deflating immediately and giving him a slightly concerned glance.  


"No, I just have not been taught yet." Jeggred replied with a shrug, trying to sound like he didn't care.

 

Prath opened his mouth to speak, but Jeggred didn't feel like discussing his educational shortcomings.

"Alright. Let's assume you haven't planned any treachery, then. - he continued, changing topic - You said you had more to tell me about the Bazaar, so why don't you start?" he prodded.

Prath sighed and stood next one of the tables.

"I do nothing for nothing." the kid had the gall to say, crossing his arms on his chest.

"How about I don't disembowel you?" Jeggred growled, mostly for show.

"How about I bind you to the floor, then?" Prath retorted with a smirk.

Jeggred looked down. The flagstones were incised with a network of faintly glowing arcane symbols and lines. In his preoccupation with more mundane traps he had completely overlooked magical threats.

"Damn!" he thought to himself.

 

"This lab is often used for demon summoning. - Prath explained - The whole floor is etched with a snaring net to keep them bound to this place." 

"You seem to forget that I'm only half-demon. How can you be sure it will work?" Jeggred pointed out with a show of bravado.

"I can't, but I have this." he declared, pulling out a small stoppered vial with some viscous, dark red-purplish liquid, a sample of his blood in all likelihood, collected from some of his exploits in the training arena, Jeggred realised with a sinking feeling.

"I bet that if I drop it on the floor the snare will activate and take hold of you specifically." he continued.

"So this was actually a trap..." Jeggred concluded, but, much to his surprise, he felt sad and tired rather than murderously angry. He had thought he had found someone who was on his side, but he had been making a fool of himself, as usual.

"No! Of course not. I mean, I didn't want to do this, but I'll do it if you leave me no chance. - Prath explained, seemingly taken aback by his reaction - Try to understand! I'm just a boy-child of a low-ranking priestess no one likes. No one will care if I live or die, no one will stick out their neck for me! And even though I actually like you, you are a fatherfucking murder machine and I won't stand a fucking chance if you decide to kill me! And I don't want to die. I have barely had a life yet!" he exclaimed with a determined expression, putting he table between himself and Jeggred, for all that it would be worth if he really wanted to have a go at him.

 

He didn't though. Prath's predicament was one he could relate to, and, after all the shit he had gone through, it wasn't worth wasting his opportunity to meet Tay and see the world just for a petty fight with a kid.

Maybe his mother wouldn't care enough to punish him, but Jeggred's own would surely see it as a breach of their pact.

"You know what? I just can't be bothered to kill you. It would hardly be fun. - he sighed - Come on, then, what in the Abyss do you want as a payment?" he added impatiently, crossing his arms and tapping a foot to the floor.

"D-do we have a deal?" Prath stammered, wrong-footed by the change of subject.

"Yes, yes. We have a bloody deal." Jeggred  huffed, rolling his eyes.

Prath licked his lips nervously, took a breath, hesitated.

"I need you to buy something for me at the Bazaar tomorrow. I'll give you the money, even.- he said finally - It's nothing illegal or dangerous. I just can't go and buy it myself because I am studying for my exams." he hastened to add, when Jeggred looked a question at him.

"What the heck is it?" Jeggred insisted.

"It's an illustrated broadsheet they print every tenday. It has stories that run for several tendays and I collect the issues. There's a really cool story now about a group of Drow who get stranded in the Upperworld after an expedition and have to team up to survive, and another one about a group of pretty, low-class jaluki who are childhood friends and enter a beauty contest to win the patronage of a Matron Mother..." he started explaining excitedly, a blush slowly creeping up his neck.

"Stories?! And you were willing to risk your life for that?!" Jeggred exclaimed, grimacing and rubbing his face with one of his larger hands.

 

Prath blushed even harder. "I didn't think it would get to that. - he admitted - I mean everybody treats you like crap, I though that if I was nice to you, you wouldn't, you know, straight out murder me just because I asked you a favour." he added, giving him another irritated look.

"And then why not? - he continued - Those stories are the only nice thing in my entire sodding life." he declared.

Jeggred cast him a sceptical glance.

"You think you have it bad, cousin, but at least you can murder those who annoy you. And anyway out there is much worse than in here, trust me. - Prath said with a grimace - I am the only Baenre kid below the 10th year in Sorcere, the older students from our House don't give a damn about me and the Archmage barely knows I exist. The Xorlarrins have been making my life a waking nightmare on and off for the whole year... and not just the two piddling first-years they have, but the older ones as well." he added.

"Alright, alright. I get it, your life sucks as much as mine, for different reasons. - he conceded - You're going to have those blasted broadsheets, don't worry." he promised. And he was definitely going to have a peek.

"T-thank you." Prath whispered, deflating almost completely in one go.

"Don't mention it in public, or I'll make you suffer worse than the Xorlarrins." Jeggred warned with a flash of fangs.

"Of course not. - Prath acquiesced - Now let's go back to business. Can you read a map?" he asked.

"I can." Jeggred replied, quirking an eyebrow inquisitively. What did that have to do with anything else? 

"Good, because I wouldn't know how to explain things to you if you didn't." the wizardling commented. He moved towards the blackboard, pulled a piece of chalk out of a pocket of his robes and started drawing an irregular geometric shape on it.

"Now pay attention, because the success of your mission may depend from it". Prath declared. 

Jeggred perked his ears and willed himself to attention, hoping it wouldn't be too long.

 

Sometime later, Jeggred walked back to his rooms, a spring in his step and a fragment of a song in his head.

In exchange for some help in cleaning the lab, especially that fatherfucking toilet, Prath had drawn the map of the Bazaar for him on a scrap of paper they had found lying around in the lab, and had annotated it with simple glyphs to show the broadsheet stall, the fungus-shake shack and other points of interest. Now that he had more information it didn't seem such a daunting endeavour anymore. He just had to stay calm and avoid the worst of the crowds by going later in the Wane. He could wait a few hours more if it meant having bigger chances of going there again, he told himself as he stripped off his day clothes and settled on his pallet for his sleep cycle.

 

It had been a long day and he was tired, but sleep seemed to elude him. His mind was too full of anticipation, excitation and anxiety.

Would Tay be happy to see him, or would she have forgotten about their agreement? Would she still want him? Because he wanted her as much as the two previous times, no, more. Now he knew how amazing it felt to be with her and how much she seemed to care for him.

Now he knew the taste of her lips and her body, now he knew the sound of her laughter, the feel of her hands on his skin, of her wetness taking him in, of her mouth wrapped around his cock... and, just by thinking about it, he was rock hard again, aching with frustrated need.

 

Only a few hours and his wait would be over, he told himself, but the fire had settled inside him, and his mind kept flashing with fragments of memories and fantasies, and he couldn't stop it. One of his smaller hands fisted around his dick almost of its own volition and started pumping it in hard, fast motions. It didn't feel remotely as nice as when she did it, but it was enough to take the edge off his frustration for the long, lonely wait, so that tomorrow he would be better prepared for her, so that he would be less eager and more patient, so that he would be able to give her all the pleasure she could take before seeking his own.

Oh, the noises she made when her pleasure grew too large to contain... they were better than music... and when she sank on him, so wet and tight around his cock that he didn't know how he didn't come on the spot...

 

Release caught him suddenly, sharp and bright, but brittle and hollow compared to when she had made him come, less satisfying. Nothing could compare, he knew, but at least a feeling of sleepiness and lassitude finally dropped on him like a sack of bricks, as he knew it would.

Jeggred summarily cleaned himself up with a discarded pair of smallclothes, then rolled to one side, with his back against the wall, curled up and was out like a light.


	4. The Market

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi folks. thanks for sticking with this.
> 
> In this chapter: explicit content, rough sex, some BDSM, rebellious drow youth, political homosexuality, Prath being a total dork, Jeggred being a murderous ball of fluff and happiness, concerned mom Triel, and drow fashion.

Overwhelming didn't quite cover it, Jeggred thought to himself, as he leaned against the wall of a house close to the entrance of the Bazaar, trying to breathe slowly and calm himself down.

It seemed like the Goddess had wanted to gather all the sounds, the sights and the smells in a single, wonderful, confusing place. Merchants advertised their wares with large placards, fairy fire and loud hawking, drow of all stations went about their business, browsing the stalls or entering the larger shops, and _iblith_ of all species mingled cautiously in the crowd: some were evidently slaves, or at best indentured servants, judging from the liveries and the collars, but some were free-folk, possibly merchants themselves.

 

It was too much to take in all at once, and he couldn't decide what to concentrate on. Part of his attention was devoted to scanning for threats, as always, but everybody seemed too engrossed in their own business to do much more than gape a bit at the sight of him and swing away from him when they passed by him. Beggars, pickpockets and _iblith_ gave him the widest berth, just as Prath had predicted. The "Peace of Lolth" declared by his mother forbid drow from killing other drow, but _iblith_ were always fair game and the law of the land always allowed the use of deadly force to protect one's safety and property.

 

And then there were the smells: a delicious, dizzying variety of them permeated the air, wafting from a food stalls serving all kinds of amazing ready-to-eat food and beverages. Jeggred had helped himself with leftover lichen and shrimp stew from the kitchens at the Great Mound before his departure, but his stomach was starting to grumble with hunger again nonetheless.

It was another sad fact of life: he needed a lot more food than regular drow, and a lot of it had to be meat, raw meat in particular because his body needed some kind of special substance that was lost during cooking. He could go without food for quite a bit of time before suffering any ill effect, but hunger tended to make him extra cranky and irritable and that could throw a wrench in his plans for the Wane.

He patted the small pouch of coin that hung from his belt with one of his smaller hands. His mother had given him some funds for the outing, and it looked like his first ever purchase was going to have to be food.

 

Sighing, he pushed off the wall where he had been leaning and walked down the toroughfare, pointing towards the cluster of food stalls closer to this entrance. He knew there were other clusters scattered throughout the Bazaar, but there would be time to explore them during another outing, as long as he didn't mess up this time.

He browsed through the stalls for a bit, undecided about the respective merits of fishcakes, shrimp skewers or rhodobacteria noodles, until a strong smell of seared meat caught his attention. Jeggred decided to follow it to a big stall where a few low-class drow were frantically busy searing patties of rothe meat on a hot plate and assembling them in stacks with shroom bread, algae, slices of oloturia, rothe cheese and a pungent-smelling sauce. His mouth started filling with saliva at the mere sight and smell.

 

One of the servers, a barely-thirty kid with a short, asymmetric haircut and lots of cheap bracelets, accosted him with a knowing smile under slightly wide, painted eyes.

"Let me guess, double, very rare and with all the trimmings. Am I right, big boy?" he asked in a sugary voice, winking at him.

"Uh... yes." Jeggred replied, a bit taken aback by the server's attitude.

The kid yelled something at his colleagues, who yelled back in acknowledgement.

"I haven't seen you around before. I would remember someone like you..." the kid said, turning back towards him and giving him an appreciative once-over.

"Are you flirting with me?!" Jeggred blurted out, trying to keep his voice as quiet as possible. His face felt burning hot with embarrassment, but underneath it there was a certain feeling of satisfaction: a second complete stranger liked him. Score!

The kid frowned and pouted, then crossed his arms on his chest.

"What if I am?" he retorted defiantly, raising his chin and looking at the draegloth under his fringe of hair.

Even though the kid was one of the least threatening people he had ever seen, Jeggred took a cautious step back.

"I... Isn't it, I don't know... frowned upon? I mean for two jaluki to... do things." he stammered.

"And what if it is? Your mom is not here to tell you off, is she?" the kid replied, completely unfazed.

"N-no, she isn't." Jeggred replied, but cast a look over his shoulder just to make sure. There had to be some Baenre agent in the market, either a member of the Family or a hireling from Bregan D'Aerthe, but he saw no familiar faces.

"But I don't think I like jaluki anyway. Sorry." he said finally, wishing the food would arrive soon and cut that conversation short.

"Well, that's a pity." the kid said, shaking his head. One of his colleagues handed over to him a parcel wrapped in oiled paper. He checked it, then nodded approvingly.

"Here is your stack. It's 7.99" he announced.

Jeggred fished the required amount of coins out of his pouch and handed them over, exchanging them for the stack.

"Well, when you tire of jalili bossing you around and want something more egalitarian, you know where to find me." the kid added as a parting shot. Jeggred made an affirmative noise and thanked him, then legged it as fast as dignity would allow him, retreating back to a different corner of the Bazaar.

 

The stack was warm and fragrant in his hands and when he unwrapped it, the smell of meat was nearly overpowering. Jegged inhaled it with a small noise of pleasure. The cooks at the Great Mound were reputedly the best in the whole City, but this was special, the first meal he had chosen and paid for himself. He was going to take his time with it, he decided, taking a small bite from a corner. The shroom bread was soft and spongy, the cheese creamy and melty, the algae crisp and the oloturia perfectly marinaded, but the meat... the meat was something else: juicy and tasty, with just the right amount of fat, seared brown outside but still basically raw in the middle, just as he liked it, and its slight gaminess was offset by the tangy, sweetish sauce slathered liberally upon it. It was perfect, hopefully the perfect start to an equally perfect Wane.

 

When he was done with it, he licked his fingers clean, wiped them on his cloak and pushed off from the wall once more, throwing the oiled paper into a neighbouring waste-dump. He had basically learned the layout of the Bazaar by heart, but he took the map out once more, just to check, and set off towards the broadsheet stall. He'd better buy Prath's stuff first, before he forgot or the print run out for the day, and then he could set his sights on more pleasurable pursuits.

 

The stall wasn't hard to find. One of the owners, a tall half-caste girl with blotchy grey skin and yellowish hair perched on top of a cart, was yelling at the top of her lungs to advertise her wares. Jeggred kept his smaller hands hidden under the cloak to avoid spooking her too much and handed her enough coins for the purchase, and she handed over to him a copy of the broadsheet. He examined it cursorily, noting the strong smell of ink, the coarse texture of the paper and the crude, lurid glyphs and woodcuts on the front page, then folded it and slipped it in one of the inner pockets of his cloak, melting into the crowd before the half-drow girl could do anything more than give him an astonished look.

There would be time to examine it more thoroughly later, when he wasn't so excited and nervous. Tay was close, very close, and his happiness was within reach.

 

He made his way through ranks and ranks of stalls, ranged in rows separated by narrow alleys. Here a weaver extolled their fine cloth, there a gnome sold small and colourful glass trinkets, a little farther away, mounds of spices from all the corners of the Upperworld and the Underworld released their fragrances for all to delight in and opposite an elderly baker and her husband pressed upon all passer-bys samples of her cake, hoping to catch a customer. A sign on the stall informed all comers that the owners were affiliated with House Armgo, and as strange as it would seem, the baker had even a passing resemblance to Tay, even though she was much smaller and more boring with her conservative braid and dress. The bakery stall was clustered with others of similar allegiance. Jeggred steered clear from them. His cloak was proudly embroidered with the crest of House Baenre, and even if it hadn't been, he was the only draegloth in the whole City and everybody knew about him after the Festival. He doubted anyone would be so silly as to try and attack him outright, but there were quite a few burly young jaluki milling around the Armgo stalls and he didn't want to provoke them into doing something silly like confronting him.

 

Thankfully, Tay's tattoo shop was in a neutral area of the Bazaar, under the control of no House in particular. It was a mushroom-stalk and adobe building leaning against the side of a squattish, round-tipped stalagmite set at the edge of the Bazaar, on the side of Braeryn, the roughest, poorest district of the City, and it was made even more recognizable by the fact that it was painted all over with bold, garish inscriptions and murals, and was situated at the end if a row of similar buildings. Prath had told him that this section of the Bazaar used to be the crappiest one, but had changed in the last few years and was now occupied by young artsy types either orbiting around the Armgos and their lower-ranking allies or rising from the ranks of the merchant and artisan classes.

Jeggred turned and walked along the whole row of shops. Weird, unusual clothes were on display next to artworks of all sizes and descriptions and really weird shoes with very high heels and huge platforms. His mother would have loved them, he thought.

The crowd was young and not too wealthy, dressed in upcycled hand-me-downs and mostly bare of house insignia. Some people had piercings and tattoos like Tay, some even had dyed hair. It was hard to tell whether the Armgos had inspired the lower classes or vice versa. His relatives found this non-conformist style reprehensible, but he liked it.

 

Like most of the others, Tay's shop had an open front and looking through it he could see two young drow of indetermined gender busy themselves with cutting and dyeing the hair of two equally androgynous customers. The air was thick with the smell of incense and pipeweed and another drow sat barefoot and cross-legged on a pile of cushions, playing a lute and swaying to the music. Drawings of what must have been tattoos were tacked on the walls, and from behind a curtain someone yelped in pain and distress. Probably it was a customer being tattooed or pierced.

Tay was nowhere in sight, so he thought about turning around and trying again, but he must have hesitated too long because one of the two hairdressers noticed him and addressed him.

"Hey, fam! Whatcha looking for?" they asked, looking unconcerned.

Jeggred froze and thought about legging it, but stamped down on that impulse.

"I want to have a tattoo done." he lied, blurting out the first thing that came into his mind.

The hairdresser's eyebrows shot up in surprise or disbelief. They exchanged a look with their colleague, then both looked at their customers, exchanging wide-eyed stares and quick, quiet comments. The hairdresser summed it all up with a shrug.

"Tay! Slick! You got a customer!" they yelled.

 

From behind the curtain another drow poked out their head, a jaluk with an outrageous coif and tattoos all over his neck, rising from the neckline of his sleeveless shirt until his jawline.

"What?! - he exclaimed - No, you're joking..." he commented, after setting his eyes on Jeggred.

"Wait here. I'll be back in a mo'." he said to whoever was behind the curtain and stepped out, cleaning his hands on a stained rag.

 

"You want a tattoo?" the jaluk asked, crossing his tattooed arms.

"Yes." Jeggred confirmed, standing by his ploy.

Slick chuckled to himself, as if it was supremely funny, and Jeggred had to force himself to stand still and calm down. He was too close to ruin it.

"What's so funny about it?" he growled between clenched fangs.

This seemed to sober him up a bit.

"Nothing. We were just taking bet on which House would be the first to have a kid come here and ask. Baenre was the last on the pool. - he explained, looking a lot less frightened than he should have been - You gotta pay up, folks." he added, laughing again, as he turned towards the hairdressers. The two rolled their eyes and huffed almost in sync, as if it was an old, unfunny joke.

 

"You bet on us?" Jeggred asked.

"Yup! - Slick replied - You folks are so strict and uptight... There must have been some rebellion brewing underneath all that respectability, right?" he commented, winking at him.

"I am not respectable. - Jeggred protested - I'm half-blood and I want to live life on my terms." he blurted out, letting his tongue get the best of him once more, but it seemed like it was the right answer to give under the circumstances.

"Yeah, fam! That's the spirit! Freaks gotta be freaks!" Slick encouraged him, working up the gall to pat him on the back. Jeggred startled at the casual contact and sidled a bit farther away from the tattooist. He wasn't sure he liked all that familiarity.

"Oi, Tay! Come down! You gotta see this!" Slick yelled at the top of his voice.

 

There was a muffled sound coming from the upper floor, then some steps from the stairs and finally Tay stepped out, causing Jeggred's heart to do a happy flip in his chest.

"What is this all about?!" she asked, scowling, but then her gaze fell upon Jeggred and she fell silent. Her eyes widened in surprise, but she got herself under control almost immediately and stepped closer, eyeing him critically. Jeggred forced himself into stillness, ignoring the temptation to hide in the folds of his voluminous cloak and shrink under examination. What if she found him lacking? Would she throw him out or humiliate him?

 

"Look at that! The Baenre do have a white spider in their midst, then..." she commented quietly instead, stopping at arm's length from him, arms crossed under her breasts and lips quirked in a smirk. She winked at him and her smile widened for a moment, just for him and he knew everything was alright, that he had passed her scrutiny once again.

For a long moment, Jeggred was unable to form a coherent reply. He was struck almost speechless by the idea of existing openly in the same public space, and even more by her beauty.

 

Her hair was raised in a mohawk again, like the first time they met, and was dyed in bands of different colours, from vibrant red at the front to deep, dark purple at the back, grading into orange, yellow, green and blue, like a prismatic spell. She was wearing only a knitted spidersilk top that barely reached her midriff and an asymmetric rothe hide skirt, the shortest parts of which extended only to about mid-tigh, and her smirking lips glowed with a bioluminescent green lipstick that enhanced the gleam in her eyes.

She was utterly arresting in a way that was impossible for him to ignore.

 

"So, have you thought about the design?" Tay continued when she realised he was too stunned to talk.

"Uh, I... not really. I suppose it will have to include my House crest, somehow." Jeggred improvised, saying the first thing that came into his mind, but evidently it was the wrong answer.

The hairdressing people and their customers made faces, and that was bad enough, but Slick started laughing to his face.

"Hey, what in the Abyss is your problem?!" Jeggred growled, turning towards Slick with bared fangs.

The tattoist took a step back, his hand sliding towards a slender wand attached to his belt. Jeggred growled again and stepped towards him.

"I have no problem, bro. I have no problem. -Slick conceded, raising his hands above his head - You like your family, alright. Good for you." he added quickly, his air of confidence completely gone. Jeggred was starting to see red, control fraying fast. It would take very little to grab the annoying jaluk by the throat and teach him a lesson in respect. He'd bet that, even though he acted all arrogant, the fatherfucker would pee himself in fright.

 

"Do you want it plain or glowy?" Tay asked, as if nothing strange was happening, and the sound of her voice was enough to distract Jeggred out of his fury and refocus him. The annoying, disrespectful jaluk was not important, Tay was, and she was there, right next to him.

"I... I beg your pardon?" he said, turning back towards her.

"Do you want it done in normal colours or with bioluminescent dyes?" she repeated with a small sigh.

"Normal, I think. My work doesn't really allow for glow-in-the dark effects." he replied. At least he had a coherent answer for that, thank the Goddess.

"Fair enough. - she conceded - Do you want spells woven in it?" she continued in a businesslike tone.

"What spells can you get?" he retorted. It was all just a ruse, but he had to admit at least to himself that he liked the idea of having a tattoo, and he could definitely see the tactical advantages of having extra layers of magical protection that were slightly more discreet than an amulet and couldn't be lost or stolen.

"That depends." Tay said, with a vague gesture of a hand.

"Depends on what?" he insisted.

"How much you can spend, for one. But that's not much of a problem for a Baenre, is it? - Tay teased - But there is also a series of other factors to consider, like placement, how much magic and pain you can take, and with your demon blood it is going to be even more complicated..."

"Does it mean you're not capable of doing it?" he dared to challenge. It would be a cold day in the Abyss when Armgo and Baenre didn't bicker. They had to keep some appearances, even if they were in neutral territory.

Tay snorted and shook her head.

"You have some gall to come here and say that to my face, kid. - she commented with a hint of approval - Of course I can do it. I can turn even your sorry hide into a work of art. It would be a nice challenge. The question is, will you have the guts to go through with this idea? My bet is that your mom won't like it, and that you won't dare go against her will." she challenged.

"You underestimate me." he growled, pretending to be angry, when in truth he was enjoying that mock-fight for dominance. Thankfully he had worn his everyday slightly baggy shorts or everyone in that room would have realised how much...

"Then come. - she instructed, beckoning towards the stairs - I need to do a test to see if the ink even takes on your skin, then we can discuss your options for the rest." she proposed with a knowing smile.

"Deal." Jeggred agreed, and stalked after her up the stairs.

 

While the lower area was actually a wooden lean-to the rest of the studio was partly carved on the side of the stalagmite and as they went up, creaky shroomwood gave way to steps hewn out of living rock. He could feel the difference in their texture under his bare paws. Tay walked in front of him, hips swaying as she climbed. Her back tattoos lighted up halfway up the stairs. She wasn't planning for gentle. Good, Jeggred thought. It had been so long, he didn't think he could do gentle even if he had wanted.

 

They came to a landing on which opened a heavy door reinforced with magic. Tay showed him in and closed the door behind them, privacy spells and magical locks falling in place with a series of muffled thumps, sighs and clicks.

The upstairs room was about as large as the one downstairs. Tay, or whoever had first come up with the idea of building a shop in there, had carved a cave in the stalagmite, with sturdy walls on three sides and a sort of balcony overlooking the market, which was insulated from the outside world only by a protection and privacy spell, the boundaries of which were carved on the floor, the walls and the ceiling. That most exposed projection was scattered with rugs and cushions and could be separated from the rest with a thick curtain, now drawn to the side to let the occupiers enjoy the view over the Bazaar.

 

The rest of the room was roughly divided in several section by more curtains, now also drawn. On one side, in a largish alcove, there was a scarred copper-topped worktable like the ones he had seen in his uncle's alchemy labs, and shelves lined with reagents and books, in one corner there was a whole bunch of painting and drawing implements, stacked on a trolley, opposite there was a weapons stand laid out with her armour and maces, while the the main part of the room was occupied by a strapped, padded chair, and a narrow bed of similar design, both not dissimilar to the torture implements he knew so well from back home.

The difference was that instead of reeking of blood and gore,  the area had a strange but not unpleasant chemical smell and the only stains he could see were from spilled paints and dyes of different colours.

The walls were scattered throughout with sketches and diagrams, interspersed with wall-art from different hands, some of it glowing with magic. There was hardly a palm of space that wasn't decorated.

 

"I guess you like my place." Tay whispered playfully, placing a hand on his arm.

Jeggred had been so lost in contemplation that her words and touch startled him.

"It's... it's you. It's perfect." he managed to say, blushing furiously.

It must have sounded really stupid, but that mixture of art and magical research, of beauty and violence, of rough edges and surprising vulnerability was exactly what he had liked in her from the very beginning, and now he knew it wasn't a seductive act. It was in all that she did, in all that she was, and he liked it, and her, even more for that.

 

Tay rolled her eyes and sighed and Jeggred found himself bracing for a blow. Last time she hadn't liked it when he had said she was perfect, and he had to go and say it again?! Truly there was no limit to his idiocy, he chided himself.

"Hey, it's alright. I am not upset." Tay reassured him. She had stepped within the reach of his larger arms and was reaching for the clasp of his cloak, a concentrated expression on her face as she unclasped it carefully and let it slide off his shoulders. Her hands followed it down, fingertips barely grazing his arms. His breath came out in a shudder.

"It's just... everything is so easy with you. I am not used to it yet." she added.

A thousand mostly clever retorts danced on the tip of his tongue, but Tay grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his head down, capturing his lips in a hungry, sloppy kiss, and everything else evaporated from his mind.

He had missed that, missed her hands on his skin, her warmth, her scent, the taste of her lips. They tasted different today, like lichen and parfume.

It must be the lipstick, he thought. It must be smearing absolutely everywhere, he also mused, but in that moment he couldn't care less. They could clean up afterwards, she could apply more later. That kiss was all that mattered in the world and he didn't want to end it, even though stooping was putting an unpleasant crick in his neck.

He placed his larger hands on her hips, shifted his feet to brace and straightened his back lifting her up. Problem solved.

 

Tay made a startled noise into the kiss, but it was only a moment before she relaxed again, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

He loved the feel of her weight, loved how solid she was, muscles sharply defined by hard training under her smooth skin, loved how strong she was.

When she had hit him last time, he had felt it: the slap, the sting, the throb of inflamed skin on his cheek. She'd done it all without a weapon, just with her hands and her strength. She'd given him the hardest hit a drow had ever managed to, and, almost in the same breath, the gentlest touch.

 

"Fuck, I missed this." Tay growled, breaking the kiss only to attack his neck with kisses and bites. Her skirt had ridden up around her waist and Jeggred could feel her warmth against his cock through his shorts. He bucked into her. He wanted more, he wanted it all.

Her hips moved against his, rolling, tilting, rubbing, creating a delicious, maddening friction, and he lost it a little bit.

 

There was a bit of wall nearby without any drawings glued to it. Before he consciously realised it, he had backed Tay against it and was bucking into her as if he wanted to fuck her through their clothes.

"Yes, yes!" she exulted, moving against him with savage, beautiful abandon. She needed it as much as he did and for some reason that shattered whatever semblance of reserve and caution he had clung on until then. He could let go. He was safe.

"Tay... Tay... Goddess help us, I am close already..." he gasped.

He had taken care of it himself a few times in the previous tendays, but this was different. So much better, so much more intense. He had been starving for it and now he could hardly resist. He couldn't slow down either, couldn't wait. Not today.

"Me too... You feel so good..." Tay whimpered, and that confession did nothing for his self-control.

He groaned and let one of his smaller hands slip between them, fingers rubbing against her smallclothes, wet with her desire. He pushed them aside, blindly feeling for all the places where she liked to be touched.

"Yes! Rip them off and fuck me!" she urged him. Her head was thrown back, her neck bared. There was no point for dominance or submission anymore, it didn't matter. Hardly anything did, just the need that was consuming them both.

 

At this stage, Jeggred couldn't care less if the folks downstairs heard them, or if his mother came to know. He just ached to be inside her, to move with her until they both came so hard.

"Do you want me to take you right here? Against the wall?" he asked in a low growl, half-astonished of having managed to formulate the question.

Tay nodded, then kissed him breathless.

"I've always wanted it, you know? For someone to fuck me against a wall. But I am too... large..." she confessed, panting for breath.

"You're not. Not for me." Jeggred replied. He fumbled with his belt, hands trembling in excitement. It took him several tries before he could unclasp it, but finally he shoved his shorts down his legs and kicked them away.

"Are you sure...?" he started.

"Yes." she confirmed.

 

Good spidersilk is not easy to tear, but her smallclothes ripped with a quiet, satisfying sound under his determined strength, and finally there was nothing left between them.

Jeggred took himself in hand and lined them up as Tay tilted her hips to take him.

He wanted nothing better than to sink into her to the hilt, bury himself in that thight, wet heat, nail her against that bloody wall with all his strength, but he forced himself to bide his time instead. Their previous experiences had showed them that it was a tight fit even after a lot of foreplay, and today neither of them would have the patience for that. He had to go slowly, at least to begin with. He didn't want to hurt her.

Barely inside her, he moved his hips in shallow thrusts and she moaned for him, squirming to take him deeper. He could feel her stretch for him, and every thrust was deeper, stronger than the next, until her was fully inside her, until he was pounding himself into her mercilessly and she was thrusting back against him like she couldn't get enough of it, and it was the best thing ever...

 

"I'm..." Tay gasped.

"Please!" Jeggred  whined. He was hanging by a thread, but determined that he would make her come before letting go. He had the impression it was going to be so intense that he wouldn't be able to help her if he came first and there was no way he was leaving her unsatisfied.

Tay arched, a sound between a growl and a scream escaped her lips and Jeggred couldn't take it anymore... and it was so strong that he couldn't even roar, he couldn't even breathe, and everything went fuzzy and black and he felt like he was breaking apart in the most wonderful, amazing way...

 

When he managed to focus on his surroundings, he was kneeling on the ground, dizzy and panting, his head laid on Tay's shoulder. She was sitting in his lap, back against the wall, still impaled on his softening cock, arms and legs still loosely wrapped around him. Her eyes were closed and a beautiful, content smile was spread on her features.

The only noise was the sound of their breath, but there was no need for words, not now. For now it was enough to bask in that feeling of completeness, of belonging, in the scent of her skin, warm with exertion, in the saltiness of the sheen of sweat that was beading on her upper lip, in the shape and feel of her muscular back under his touch.

He felt tired, but a good sort of tired, lazy and relaxed, almost sleepy. Wouldn't it be nice to just curl up next to her and sleep, wrapped in her warmth and scent and presence?

"Are you... are you purring...?" Tay whispered, her voice breathy and quiet and full of wonder.

"Am I?" Jeggred retorted, jerking back from her, alarmed and ashamed. He had been caught in the moment and had not realised that he was doing it. Damn!

"You were. - Tay confirmed - I didn't know you could do something like that." she added.

"Now you do. Another one of my freakish features... You're still in time to run away screaming." he said, forcing a goofy smile and trying to make a joke out of it. It was bad enough that he looked like a beast, did he really have to behave like one in front of her?

Tay rolled her eyes. "Males... Always so dramatic..." she sighed, then leaned forward and kissed him.

"I like it. It feels nice. - she said when they parted - Do you only do it when you fuck the everloving darkness out of someone?" she quipped.

Jeggred shook his head.

"I... I only do it when I'm happy." he whispered, looking away from her in profound embarrassment. He must really sound like one of those crazy, clingy boyfriends who get overly attached and emotional after a few fucks. 

"But you didn't do it the last two times. Didn't I make you happy back then?" Tay argued, more pointedly. 

"Uh... I guess there was not enough time to relax." he tried to justify himself. Anxiety started to course through him. There was no more risk of purring now.

"So that's like your chilling out noise?" she prodded.

"I guess so." he conceded, waiting for the mockery that was sure to come, but her body language was wrong for that, too relaxed, too comfortable, and she made no move to get off from his lap. He dared to look up at her face. She was smiling. It looked like a slightly put upon smile, but it was a smile nonetheless, so maybe he hadn't messed it up too badly, after all.

 

"You are always full of surprises, aren't you? - she commented, jovially enough - First your "linguistic" skills, then running away from home to see me, and now this..." she added, her lips quirked in a smirk. She threaded her fingers in his hair and started massaging his scalp like it was absolutely no big deal. Jeggred couldn't help but groan in delight. He absolutely loved to be touched like that. The impulse to purr came unbidden, like an itch at the back of his throat, almost impossible to resist.

"Come on... I know you want to..." she whispered.

"Doesn't... doesn't it freak you out?" Jeggred managed to object.

"I know you are different, alright? You can be you with me, you don't have to pretend that you are just a normie." she retorted.

"Normie?!" he repeated.

"A regular type. Boring. That's how we call them at home. - she explained without suspending her caresses - Be a freak with me. Let the rest of the world and their expectations fuck off and die." she entreated.

 

Jeggred let out a breath he didn't realise he was holding and let her pull him back against her, head on her shoulder, arms wrapped around her in a loose embrace, purring loudly like there was no tomorrow.

"This must be my best nameday ever..." he whispered after an immeasurable while.

"Today is your nameday?" Tay asked.

Jeggred nodded. He was too lazy to talk, it was too difficult to string words together right now.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she asked. Some irritation had creeped back in her voice, but her fingers kept moving steadily against his scalp.

He managed to raise his head long enough to cast her a quizzical look.

"Why would even you want to know?" he asked, wariness creeping back into him.

Tay rolled her eyes and sighed again. "Because... I don't know. People usually celebrate it." she replied. Her cheeks flashed with heat for a moment as if she was embarrassed.

"But I am. I'm here. This trip to the Bazaar was my nameday boon from my mother." he explained.

"So it's a one-off?" Tay asked.

"Hopefully not, as long as I keep my mother happy and behave myself." he replied. And he would. For this, for freedom, for awesome food and random flirty strangers, for Tay... for Tay above all, he would be ready to do almost anything.

"You really are mum's obedient little boy, aren't you?" she teased, chuckling quietly.

"I try to. Most of the time. My mother is kind to me, I... like to please her." Jeggred replied, feeling his face heat up in embarrassment once more. Hopefully she wouldn't laugh in his face like that jerk downstairs.

"Hey, there is nothing to be ashamed about. I like my mom too. She is cool." Tay declared instead.

"Cool?" Jeggred repeated, eyeing her with incomprehension.

"Nice and supportive. - Tay explained - It's good to be the baby girl, or boy, in your case." she added.

"You're the last?" Jeggred inquired, dubious once more.

"Yep. All those Armgo kids you see running around are either my cousins or my nephews, and Dris is adopted. My mom picked her up as a baby when we took down her original House." she explained.

"She doesn't really have the family looks." Jeggred commented.

"She's also a little shit, but you know, adolescents..." Tay commented with a laugh.

Jeggred made a non-committal noise. He didn't have the foggiest clue on what she was talking about. Anyone younger than him was still in the nursery with her mother or minder.

 

There was another brief pause as the conversation trailed off into more cuddling (and purring, now that he had started he didn't really want to stop), and it could have turned into something more, except that they were both aware of the passing of time and of the people downstairs who would start asking questions if he didn't emerge from the meeting anytime soon.

"So, are you really serious about getting a tattoo?" Tay asked eventually, getting back to their original business.

"Why not? It's not like it can harm my marriage prospects, right?" Jeggred quipped.

"Be serious!" Tay chided, slapping a hand on one of his upper shoulders, but with a smile on her face.

"I am serious. I don't have anything to lose, I am not respectable, and I like the aesthetic. - he replied - Especially the geometric stuff your friend from downstairs was wearing. That was really something."

"Of course it was! I made those designs for him!" Tay exclaimed, her cheeks colouring in a discreet blush.

"Can you make one for me too?" Jeggred asked, giving her one of his best pleading gazes, of the kind that almost always worked with his mother.

"Yes, but are you sure that's what you like best? - Tay sighed, caressing his hair again - Maybe you'd like something symbolic like that?" she insisted, pointing towards a drawing tacked to the wall that seemed to represent the Trials of the Spider Queen in a very abstract, dreamlike way. It was amazingly detailed and poignant.

"Or something figurative?" Tay continued.

Jeggred looked around and saw another drawing, a miniature full-colour reproduction of Narbondel.

"That would be a bit too much, don't you think?" he objected, taken a bit aback.

Tay laughed. "I told exactly the same thing to the dude who asked me to make it, but he was adamant, and he was paying, so whatever... I wouldn't want to be caught dead in that, but to each drow her folly, right?"

Jeggred chuckled and nodded. "I think my mother would skin me alive if I came back home with something like that." he commented.

"No risk of that, because I wouldn't put something like that on you. - Tay said, pressing herself closer to him - You shouldn't forget that you are mine, Jay, and I take good care of what belongs to me..." she added, whispering the words in his ear.

Jeggred shivered minutely.  
"I won't. - he promised - Does that mean that you won't tattoo me with anything you don't like?" he dared to ask.

"Exactly... - Tay confirmed, pulling on his hair to force him to expose his neck and biting him to mark once again her dominance - I am the one who gets to see you naked, after all..."

"And soon enough you'd get to tie me down to a chair too..." he managed to retort, voice strained both by the position and by the anticipation that surged through his veins. His cock, which so far had been content with resting, twitched to attention.

Tay let out a small groan and tilted her hips against his. She was getting wet at the idea, inner muscles shifting around him to adjust to the... resurgence.

"Oh, yes... - she whispered, starting to move over him - My beauties have magic shackles, strong enough to hold even you without straining. You'd be powerless, at my mercy... And you would like that, won't you?"

 

A series of images flashed through his mind, of Tay tying him up and tormenting him in new wonderful ways, of pain and delight mixed until he couldn't tell the difference, of glorious, unbearably pleasurable submission. He would never be able to look at the instruments of his own work with quite the same eyes ever again.

"Please, mistress..." he whined shamelessly. She could strip all dignity from him with just a few whispered words, and he loved it.

"There are so many things I want to do to you... So much pleasure I want to give you... - she continued, grinding herself on his cock faster and harder - You're never going to be able to walk away from me afterwards. Nothing else will be enough." she promised, and shifted, planting her feet on the ground and starting to pound herself on his cock as fast and as hard as she could.

He grabbed her hips with his larger hands and helped her fuck him.There was no gentleness in their joinings today, and it was perfect.

"It's true! - Jeggred managed to rasp - It already is!" he almost sobbed. His nerves felt still raw from the previous time and he was hurtling closer to his climax with every thrust of her hips, with every whispered word of dominance she deposited in his ear.

"You're mine. Say it!" Tay ordered, without stopping in her relentless fucking.

"I am! I am yours!" he cried between clenched fangs, trying desperately to hold on because he was too close, too fucking close and she definitely wasn't.

"Then come for me." she ordered, biting him once more at the junction of neck and shoulder, hard enough to mark him.

"Now?!" he gasped.

"Yes, now. Right now. Let me watch you come, let me hear you scream for me." she insisted, looking at him with lust darkening her eyes, as if he was something worth looking at, something precious and coveted.

"Fuck..." he exhaled, feeling his body clench in the first throes of orgasm.

His spine arched reflexively, head thrown back, and his breath caught in his throat for a moment, but this time he managed to recover it and roared her name, and she kept on fucking him relentlessly as he came, stretching that moment longer and longer, like the first time, until it became too much, until pleasure turned into torment, nerves burning raw, muscles clenched too tight, and still she kept on fucking him.

"Mistress... mistress, please, stop!" he eventually pleaded, breathless.

"Do you want to leave me stranded, Jay?" she asked, beautiful and terrible like the Goddess herself.

"N-no." he managed to reply. Never, he would never want to leave her unsatisfied. He would have never dreamed o

f it.

"Then hold on for me. I know you can." she declared, praising and condemning him in the same breath.

She pushed him to his back and kept on fucking him mercilessly, hands splayed on his chest, head thrown back, and he let her use him for her pleasure, even though it was agony, even though there was nothing holding him but the weight of her words, even though it would have been so easy to throw her off and end this.

He could take this for her, he would do it, because she wanted it, because she had asked, because she was whispering how much she loved to see him like that, how good it felt to fuck him like that, how close she was, because she was worth it, she was worth every pain.

He could feel her starting to clench around his abused, half-hard dick and all of a sudden he felt himself responding once more.  
She threw her head back and screamed his name, coming all over him without any restraint, and something switched in him and he was arching into her, fangs clenched in a grimace and tears streaming out of the corners of his eyes, and he didn't know if he was coming too or it was just a reflection of her pleasure, he couldn't tell the difference anymore.  
He only knew that it was raw, harsh... perfect.

 

He came round to the feeling of warm hands on his skin, of fingers carding affectionately through his hair. He felt exhausted and sore, but deeply content and satisfied, as if he had just accomplished something important for someone he cared for.

"Oh, thank the Goddess... - Tay whispered, placing a kiss on his lips - You blacked out for a bit..." she added, and Jeggred could hear the worry in his words.

"I shouldn't have pushed you so far. I didn't want to hurt you." she added quietly.

Jeggred managed to open his eyes, though his eyelids felt like they had been glued together. She looked sad and forlorn, as if his health really mattered to her beyond the fact that she might have broken her toy and caused a real mess between their Houses.

"I...I'm fine. And I went there with you willingly." he rasped, cupping the side of her face with one of his hands. He belatedly realised that it was one of the big ones, but she didn't pull back.

"I could have stopped you. I didn't. I wanted this as much as you did." he continued. Even his throat felt raw. He dearly hoped her privacy screen held throughout the session, because he really wouldn't be able to face the people downstairs if they had heard him beg like that.

Tay sighed and closed her eyes, letting her body curl against his on the floor. "You are really too good to be true." she whispered, laying her head on his shoulder and a hand on his chest.

"Pot. Kettle. Black." he managed, a purr starting to rumble in his chest.

"We can't conk out now. - Tay warned, moving away after a mere moment, but sounding unhappy about it - We took long enough already, it's going to look weird."

"Damn, you're right." Jeggred agreed forcing himself to open his eyes again and rise on his elbows. His abdomen and thighs felt sore and weak, like after a gruelling training session, and his cock felt nearly on fire. He wasn't looking forward to the walk back home.

Tay uncorked a small bottle and took a sip, then offered it to him. "Here, take this." she said.

Jeggred did as told and sniffed its contents suspiciously. "A potion. What for?" he asked, identifying it from the strong smell of herbs and magic.

"It helps with the soreness, and, well... your neck looks like you've gone toe to toe with a vampire... - she revealed, blushing hard - I know you heal fast, but if you walk out of here like that, they will notice." she added.

"And I no longer have the excuse of a venatio, this time." he added with a sigh. He liked to wear her marks, but soon he would manage to do so in plain sight, if their plans came to fruition.

He downed the potion, grimacing at the taste, and felt better almost immediately, soreness gone and weariness lifted. It was a pity, really, he liked being worn out by the things he did with Tay.

 

Tay rummaged in one of her cabinets and started pulling out a series of small bottles and pots and something that looked like a stick with a bunch of needles stuck at the top.

"What are you doing?" Jeggred asked.

"Getting the colours out." she replied as if it was obvious.

"There are different colours?!" he exclaimed, feeling excited in spite of himself.

Tay nodded. "Of course there are, but your skin tone is so dark that only white and light colours will take, if any, and I need to perform a test to see if you have any adverse reaction to any of them before we can plan the real thing." she explained patiently.

"What do I need to do?" he asked.

"Hand me your wrist, I don't care which one, and stay still and quiet." Tay replied, winking as she dipped the wicked stick-and-needles thing in a pot of colour.

Jeggred did as told, looking away and waiting for the sting.

 

Most of his cousins were still milling around the training grounds when he came back and they all turned to stare at him when he swaggered in like he didn't have a care in the world.

The board with the betting pool was still in its place, rows of script and figures recording individual bets. There was an empty space at the bottom, marked by two red squares. It must be for the final score, Jeggred imagined.

He took a piece of bioluminescent chalk and drew two zeroes as best as he could. The chalk screeched on the board and the glyphs were all shaky, but the message was clear enough.

"Clean slate, assholes! - he declared - Time to pay up." he added, pointing his finger at Thiago. The kid was the unofficial leader of the little shits, based on the fact that he was the grandson of one of his uncles, Weapons Master Dantrag, a famed asshole who had managed to get himself killed by some good-for-nothing renegade before Jeggred was even born.

"We have no proof that it is as you say." one of the others had the gall to object.

"Ask Bregan d'Aerthe. See if I care." Jeggred retorted, shrugging his shoulders and flipping them all the dead spider as he turned away.

He had caught the agent who had been sent to tail him and had persuaded him that, whatever money his cousins had promised him wasn't worth the death he would give him if he lied. He was pretty sure the agent would think not just twice but several times before he double-crossed his mother and him.

[Alchemy lab. In an hour.] he flashed at Prath, trying to keep his hand-signs as discreet as he could, when he intentionally brushed past him in the corridors, then continued past him, towards his mother's chambers.

The door-slave let him in immediately. He was awaited.

 

His mother was lounging with a book on her usual throne-like chair, legs folded underneath her, covered by her long dress.

"You took your time, son." she said, a stern undertone tinging her voice, but not so much that he couldn't hear her relief. It was good to be home.

"It took a while to find the perfect gift for you, mother." he replied, kneeling before her and unslinging a bag from his shoulders. He took a boxy parcel from it and handed it over to her.

"A gift? For me?" she repeated, turning it into her hands, as if she couldn't quite wrap her mind around the idea.

Jeggred nodded. He had managed to surprise her, and that was good, but that also meant that she wasn't used to getting gifts, and that was bad. She deserved gifts and happiness.

"Come on, open it." he encouraged her.

Triel Baenre tore the paper from the box and opened it, her eyes widening in surprise and then glistening in delight as she removed a pair of shoes from within it. And not just any shoes, a fabulous pair of black knee-length boots with shroom-stalk platform-heels at least eight inches high and a pattern of spider webs embroidered in bioluminescent thread all over them.

"Do you like them?" Jeggred asked. They hadn't come cheap, burning the rest of his allowance to nothingness, but as soon as he'd seen them, he had known that they would have been perfect for his mother.

"They are lovely!" she exclaimed, putting them down on her lap so that she could throw her arms around his neck and hug him tight.

"Why did you do something like this?" she asked a moment later, pulling back to look at him straight in the eye.

"Because I love you, and I know you like these things. But you're always so busy and working so hard, that you end up missing out on them. - Jeggred replied with a shrug - Take it as a small thank you for everything you do for me. You deserve it." he added with a smile and his mother pulled him back towards her.

"So you had a good time at the Bazaar?" she asked, ignoring her new shoes in favour of petting him.

"It was amazing! Like, the best nameday present ever! And it's so big. I've not even managed to see it all." he replied, his excitement entirely genuine.

"Yes, however I have been told that you spent quite a long time in a shop in the Arts District. - Triel pointed out - And I am not talking about the shoemaker." she added.

"I was talking to Tay Armgo from the tattoo shop. - Jeggred admitted as if it wasn't a big deal - She said she can weave a "magic armour" enchantment in her tattoos, and I was thinking that it might be a good move. You know, an extra help in the moment of need." he added.  
He had imagined that she would get to know, sooner or later, at least if he freely admitted to most of it straight away she wouldn't have reason to suspect much.

 

His mother gave him a sceptical look. "A tattoo? How did you get such an idea in your mind?" she commented, shaking her head.

"I saw one on one of the Armgos at the Festival. It looked wicked and it doubled as a protective spell. - he replied, and the best was that it wasn't even a lie - Strategically speaking, it is a good idea, and I know well-born drow don't do this kind of stuff, but I am not a real drow and I have decided to stop pretending, so..." he trailed off, hoping he had not misjudged the levels of sass he could get away with.

His mother rolled her eyes and huffed.

"Where?" she asked, sounding quite put upon.

"Where what?" Jeggred retorted.

"Where did you get it done?" she insisted, stiffening in irritation.

"Oh, I didn't. Not yet. - Jeggred replied sheepishly - She needs to figure out the calculations for the enchantment, and we don't have a design yet, I need to think about it. But I've done the test, to see if I react badly to any of the colours. Do you want to see it?" he offered, looking at her with earnestness and enthusiasm, neither of which were feigned.

Triel Baenre didn't reply, so he took off his left vambrace and unrolled the gauze Tay had tied around his wrist. It wasn't a looker, really, just small clusters of coloured dots, slightly reddened and raised at the edges, but each cluster was in a diffeent colour and he really couldn't decide which he liked best.

"Here, have a look." he said, turning it towards his mother.

Triel's fingers traced them lightly, making them itch a bit. Her expression was utterly impassive and considering.

 

"Was it painful?" she asked eventually.

Jeggred shook his head. "It barely stung."

"And did she clean her instruments properly?" his mother continued.

"Yes, with some kind of alcohol and a purifying prayer." he replied dutifully.

"So she's a priestess." Triel commented, arching a delicate eyebrow.

Jeggred nodded once more. "Her magic tattoos are done with sacrificial magic, she said. - he reassured her - It's all approved by Arach Tinilit, at least in theory. She even has a piece of paper that attests it, not that I could read it..." he added in proof.

His mother's face lit up suddenly. "What did you say was her name?"

"TayRuul Armgo, Last Girl of House Armgo. - Jeggred replied, a bit baffled by his mother's sudden interest - Do you know her?"

"She was one of my last students. Smart but a bit of a weirdo. - Triel acquiesced - She still has a research position at Arach Tinilit. That is, she will until Quenthel realises I actually like the weirdo and cancels it..." she added with a small roll of her eyes. No one really liked aunt Quenthel: she was bossy, and ambitious, but she thought she was much better than she actually was.

"So she actually does have your seal of approval." Jeggred butted in. He almost couldn't believe his luck.

"Her practice is orthodox and approved, yes. - Triel conceded - But tattoos, Jeggred? Really?" she commented, sighing again. She had not said No, however, not once.

"Yes, really. Divinely approved ones, it seems. - he retorted with a victorious grin - What colour do you think would be best?" he added, knowing he had her.

"Not yellow. Anything but yellow." she declared, her expression all serious, but there was a glint of amusement in her eyes.

"What about this purplish-white? Purple is the colour of our House-crest." Jeggred proposed.

Triel gave him a strange look.

"I said I want to stop pretending I am a full-blood drow, not that I want to stop being a Baenre. - Jeggred explained - I am proud of being your son. You are cool. You are the best mother ever." he added.

 

About an hour later, Jeggred emerged from his mother's rooms, still feeling a bit fuzzy in the head from all the cuddling, and thirsty from all the talking.

His mother had wanted to know all about his impressions of the Bazaar, even though the Breghan d'Aerthe agent must have told her exactly where he'd gone and how long he'd spent in each place. She'd wanted to know what he thought of each place and each person he met, and except for what had truly passed at the tattoo shop, he was entirely sincere with her, to the point of telling her about the jaluk from the food stall, making the story into a sort of joke

His mother had pulled a scandalised face, but she had also laughed at the punchline and that was the end of it. She had seemed happy that the trip had made him happy.

The whole operation had been a complete success as far as the two of them were concerned and now Jeggred jogged down the corridors towards the alchemy labs, knowing his meeting with his mother had badly overrun and he was late for the meeting.

 

"Ah, there you are! I thought you had stood me up!" Prath exclaimed as soon as he opened the door to the lab.

"I was delayed, cousin. My mother wouldn't stop talking. - Jeggred explained - I wouldn't renege our deal. Here is your broadsheet." he added, taking the roll of paper out of the pocket of his piwafwi and handing it over to him.

"Sweet!" Prath exclaimed, a smile splitting his face. He gave the pages a quick flick-and-peek and let out a high-pitched, excited noise.

"Yes! I knew it!" he exclaimed.

"You knew what?" Jeggred enquired, scratching his head in complete bafflement.

"That they had not killed off Harla for real when she disappeared into the lake. - Prath explained - She is the protagonist of Stranded in the Upperworld, and she's, like, every jaluk's dream-wife: strong, fearless, deeply devoted, a natural leader, astonishingly beautiful... I mean, if she existed I'd volunteer as her concubinus in a pinch. The authors simply can't kill her off. She's going to end up Matron Mother at the end of the series, I'd wager." he rambled on, while Jeggred listened in utter fascination.

It took a while for Prath to notice he was being stared at intently, and in the meantime he had launched into an explanation of how the priestess Harla had been playing her two love interests, the wizard Lehanin and the warrior Zash, off each other to figure out who was the most suitable, while the barbaric half-orc Valdrik pined for her, unrequited.

 

"Eh?! - he exclaimed when he eventually realised, suddenly alarmed - What?! What's wrong?!"

"Nothing. - Jeggred replied - Those stories of yours, they seem really interesting." he commented thoughtfully, an idea forming in his mind.

"I told you they were awesome, didn't I?" Prath agreed, smiling widely. He seemed to be at ease around him, for the moment, and Jeggred found that he didn't mind this state of things.

"I'll tell you what, cousin. I'll go and pick them up for you every tenday while you are taking your exams, and in exchange you'll tell me the stories." he proposed.

Prath's crimson eyes went comically wide in their sockets and his mouth started to gape a bit.

"So you made it! - he exclaimed - Goddess ferocious, that should teach those assholes! Well done, cousin! This calls for a high-five!" he added, raising an open hand in the air in front of him, with his elbow slightly bent.

"Eh, sorry, cousin, what is a high-five?" Jeggred asked, tilting his head to one side in confusion.

Prath's enthusiastic expression evaporated in a mere moment.

"You really don't know?" he asked, equally confused.

Jeggred nodded in confirmation.

"It's something people do to celebrate, you know, when something good happens. - Prath explained- You just clap your hand, gently, against someone else's." he added, raising his hand again, an expectant look on his face.

Jeggred gave him a suspicious look and raised his hand, one of the small ones, in turn, clapping it lightly against Prath's.

 

"Yes, just like that! High-five!" Prath approved, grinning madly, and Jeggred found himself grinning in turn. It was nice to be at ease with someone every now and again.

"Yes, yes, but what about my proposal? - he insisted, refusing to be sidetracked. - Do we have a deal?"

Prath mulled over it for a second. "If you help me with my cleaning chores, I'll even teach you how to read." he said, upping the ante.

Jeggred stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out if there was any sign of malice or untruth, but could detect none, neither in his expression and posture, nor even on his scent. It seemed too good to be true, but the kid meant it. It was an opportunity he just couldn't miss.

"Deal?" Prath pressed on, his gaze hardening.

"Deal." Jeggred agreed, before he could change idea.

"Then let's shake on it." Prath instructed, spitting in his hand and proffering it towards Jeggred. The draegloth gave him a questioning look, but eventually shrugged and did the same, and the kid clasped it with a wet, squishy sound.

"That was gross." Jeggred protested, wiping his palm on his shorts.

"That was solemn. - Prath countered and stood - Come on, let's go to the kitchen to grab a late dinner and then we'll get started." he instructed.

"This Wane?!" Jeggred blurted out, slightly baffled.

"Yeah, no time like the present! Come on! Do you want to learn or not?!" he urged as he started to walk away.

 

Jeggred stood and followed him, even though he had already had a full day and could have used some rest. He wasn't going to sit out an occasion like that.

No time like the present indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Jeggred purrs. I know... XD


End file.
